The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-01-11
WINTER SUNSHINE.

WlNIER SUNStilNE'
 Amidst so much of cloudy, gloomy weather we are apt to get, in our aver age winter, it is very pleasant to have
 here and there, in midwinter, day or so of clear full sunshine. The present winter has brought, perhaps, its aceus- toned number of these bright days, up to the present time. They are, at any rate, doubly appreciated after all the prevalent gloomy weather of November and December At no time is the sun shine more welcome than in our north ern winter. Then, it is thoroughly en- joyable. No longer potent enough, as in summer and the firts part of autumn, to drive pedestrians to the shady side of the street, it is now a genial, enllV- enins influence, which may be thor oughly enjoyed, whether in walking, riding, or even in the house, in some room which permits the flood of warmth and light to pour in through a south facing window. This latter situation, indeed, Is the most enjoyable of the three, on a stinging cold, clear day. It is one of natures beneficent arrange ments best felt in winter, that the sun shine can pass through such a solid substance as glass without parting with any perceptible portion of its light or heat. In these growing winter after moons, when they happen to be clear, one best appreciates the genial quality of the sun. No longer the fierce, uni versal demon of July, he floods your lawn, or southwark looking room, with a comfortable, companionable, delight full warmth and illumination, that goes Co, a4N Cow No fr1r or frnct f more sullen winter days. John Bur- roughs, our best observer, naturalist and philosopher, writing, nearly quar- ter of century ago, of winter walks out of Washington, rightly said. sun light is good any time, but bright, evenly tempered day is certainly more expressing to the attention in winter than in summer" Such days, he added, are the rule, rather than the exception, in the Washington winter. With us, they are more likely to be the excep- tion-and so, we appreciate them all the more. True, they are apt to spoil the sleighing, and make dirty streets and sloppy walking; but one could not afford to give them up, for all that What sight in town is more suggestive of coming spring, near by, than the rushing streams pouring through every sloping street, from the melting snow in early but sunny March days? Even though turbid and foul, their appear | ance Is welcome. They suggest the up- country maple-sugar camp-and the coming note of the bluebird.
 | Such days may be less suggestive, now in nidw,nter, of the coming break ing-up of the winter season--for we now have the most rigorous and worst and biggest half'' of it, like the troubles of a young bear, all ahead and to come. | but the smiling blue of the winter sky, in these increasing afternoons, certainly | does give the living assurance that Na- | lures rejuvenating life has not all died out of the world. and that her gladdest and best season, the awakening and jo- cund spring time, though still afar, is | coming. The afternoon is already near 1 ly twenty minutes longer counting merely from the time of sunset while | if we take account of the available du- ration of daylight, due to the longer practical twilight. the gain is already over half an hour. For, to apply the | best available test, the time for which | one may read book or newspaper by daylight, it is found that at fairly well lighted window, on a clear after noon, one can now read comfortably until about 5 o'clock. Tn the middle of December Cor earlier) the available day light failed at about 4:15. Now. in a
 day or two, the morning, too, will begin l to grow a little earlier. The laggard I sun, which has been for nearly a fort I night delaying to get up these cold win 1 ter mornings, till about half-past seven
 will begin to. reform his habit in that
 matter. It will be very gradual pro-
 cess, but 1t is comfortable to feel sure
 that it Is already fairly under way. By I the end even of the present month there
 will be very decidedly earlier sunrise;
 and as to sunset, that will be delayed
 at the end of January till o'clock ol l later, while the available daylight will
 be much further. prolonged. The light of the winter day now Is no longer the
 decaying, dying beam, but the sunshine
 of rising and hopeful near year!- Hartford Times.