The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-10
sEATTLE, SUNDAY. APRIL 10.
OUTDOOR LIFE.


begin to bloom the first week in March.
The spring in New England does not stir
before the first week in April; the wild
flowers begin to come like single spies by
the middle of that month. but do not ar
rive by battaiions before the second week
imperceptibly into each other, so slowly
does our spring march before it is finally
lost to sight in the affectionate but calm
embrace of summer. Spring at the East,
on the contrary, starts to its feet with q
bound the second week of May;
its life is brief. brilliant, beautiful.
but it dies quickly before the hot
breath of summer. Our spring rises early,
but lives so long that we can hardly tell
when spring melts into summer; the New
England spring rises late and retIres early.
The line of demarcation between winter
and spring; between spring and summer:
between summer and autumn; between
autumn and winter, is far more strongly
marked than in Washington.
The beautiful, brilliant, sudden. splen-
did resurrection of nature that New Eng
land May exhibits is unknown on this
Coast, and the brilliant autumn dyes of
New Engand's woods are not found in
our forests, but to offset this We have n
climate that in its perennial mildness
gives q far larger number of days of agree
able outdoor life. The New England win
ter begins about the middle of November
and ends about the middle of April; that
is, the outdoor life that stands for vivid
green grass and blooming wild flowers is
extinct in New England from tho
first week of November to the
middle OF April. Our autumn
season is as delightful and agreeable to the
senses up to the middle of December as
the New England autumn that expires
with October. In November and Decem-
Der and January this winter We had
many days balmy, bland. bright and beau
tiful; without snow; with little rain;
while at the East the same season stood
for Hoods lines. mo sun, no moon. no
stars; November" Spring wakes with us
early and dies late. 1t IL a creature of
smiles and tears through March and April,
but never chronically ugly and forbidding
like the April mood of the Eastern spring,
and by May the spring in WASH
ington has settled down into a
thoroughly bland and resposeful girl. 1t
natures so gently and gracefully
that we hardly know when spring is sped
and summer is here. The change is hardly
more violent than takes place when a
charming woman changes her hat. 1t is
the same sprightly, pleasant friend we
saw yesterday, only she wears her hair a
little different and sports a new head gear.
Summer with us is far superior to the
New England season, for in our hottest
days, and our hot days are very few. the
nights are so cool that you are always sure
10 sleep well. The autumn days, up to
the middle of October, are beautiful, for
earth. air, harbor, mountain and sky
stand for picture of harmonious beauty
as you gaze at it from the top of Queen
Anne hill. The perfect Indian summer air
makes this outlook grand in the fine Sep-
tember days when the dying san gilds with
rosy light the splendid snow-clad mountain
whose slim spars fringe their crest; the
harbor waters glitter at your feet; the eve
falls first on the beautiful foothills on
either hand; then on the blue line of the
olympic range on your right rising ont of
the misty shroud that wraps its base:
then on the lief: the lofty peak of Rainier
lifts its snowy scalp and icy walls above
the landscape, towering above all meaner
mountains even as Mount Blanc does
ABOVE the obscure rank and file of the
Alps.
The superiority of our climate lies in
the fact that We have more DAYS in our
year when we comfortably out of doors
look on this lovely landscape; more days
when We have flowers in bloom. when We
have grass and trees in rich verdure clad
than We do in New England. We miss
the brilliant flush. bounce and bounding
beauty of New England's short spring,
that breaks like beautiful fairy suddenly
out of the earth: We miss the glory of her
autumn, whose brilliant hues suggest the
hectic beauty of dying Indian queen,
hut our mild, short winter. the early
spring, the bland summer, with its cool
nights, the long. bright autumn. increases
40 largely the number of days when out
door life Is not only tolerabie, but agreeable
that no Eastern man who has lived in
Washington five years would lose its
climate all the year round for the sake of
New England's brief burst of spring
beauty or the shortlived glory of her
autumn's forest dyes. The climate that
affords the largest number of days when
II is comfortable to be out of doors and
enjoyable is the best land 10 live in, for
there Is exquisite mental pleasure in out
door life 20 him who has the rambling
habit. There is the sweet call Of the birds,
the sight Of the swift fishes as they flash
In the streams; the flight of insects. the
flush OF flowers, the grace and glory of the
woods that bow their heads with tipsy Joy
and make gestures OF welcome with all the
fingers of their thousand arms.
The flowers, the trees, the birds, the fish
and game, all in their season make .
charming procession OF old loves that
every year lock fresh and new 90 anv man
who was fortunate enough when young 20