The Weather.

Otago Witness, Volume 23, Issue 2684, 23 August 1905, Page 80

The We ather.

.One of the most surprising things about the weather is that it should still continue to exHt after having been talked about co lonj The weather is one of the few things that treats everybody alike. It moves in ©very society. No one has yet succeeded in getting a corner in it. We are, in a very large secse, what th« weather, makes us. It oftentimes takes a lot of bad weather to produce a nervous, high-strung, impulsive, imaginative, and alllcund 'first-aluss human being. He has to be tuned' up to the right pitch. He needs to , be properly tempered and made fit to endure.* The weather takes him in hand and puts him through £.n unsystematic course .of training. It is constantly playing wicks upon him. It lays for him at Street corners, "gets him into a red-hot American room and stabs him in the back, and indeed tries to make it as uncomfortable for the poor chap as possible. "If he puts up with me long enough," lays the weather, "he will amount to something. If he defies me continuously, and survives, he'll do something yet to make me proud "of him." The weather, like our modern rich, wo have always with us. And, singularly enough, it' exists only because of its variety. If it were always exactly the same \xe should not be conscious of it.

> Hence we see that the weath-er has a very proper pride in its own existence. . "The more variety I give you," says the weather, "the more I shall be noticed and respected. " I, too, am aware that it pays |o advertise."

It is remariable how much the weather can do with a few simple elements. With a little rain, a. little snow, a little wind, and something less than lOOdeg. of temperature it turns nut dislomats. statesmen,

parsons, and politicians, monarchs, officeboys, queens and cooks, athletes and invalids — indeed, enough people to go round. The weather, ako, is extremely critical and conscientious in its work. It teems to take a plebeian dislike to those who are below par, and of this you may be sure that the weather makes it a special business to find out. It is a splendid judge ot human nature, and never makes a mistake, going straight to our one weak spot with unerring aim. It would seem, also, as if the weather had a sense of humour. It is extraordinarily kind to some apparently weak, deli-cate-looking chap, and permits him to sit around for years, and oftentimes do things that are really worth while, and at the same time some bold, hearty, bluff, redfaced fellow the weather will puff out as if it were the greatest fun in the world. It is truly sad to be obliged to acknowledge that we do not treat the weather as it deserves. It is not so much that we talk about it behind its back, as that when we de,- -we constantly disparage it. It ecems aa almost ironic commentary upon human nature that ; the one thing that makes men of- us shoulcr be a term of almost constant reproach. - ' , .When it is stormy we Tsay, with passion, "Now, isn't this beastly! Did you ever see such weatheT?"

TOTith as^much power as the weather kas, what a revenge it might take upon us for ttis ! And yet, as an evidence of its kind arid loving charitable- attitude towards us, the next day- it rends the sunshine. Yet even • with too much sunshine we are displeased. "Will it never rain !" we say again, and when the rain comes we take it as a matter of course, and something that we are "justly entitled to.

It is true that ' the weather seems at times to be too severe upon vs. But it .will invariably be found to be our own fault. In serene contempt for what the weather may do, we coddle ourselves, and when the pneumonia, inspector comes round and we do not pass, once again we blame the weather for it. But suppose there were no weather to make us endure? Why, we couldn't live without it !

There should be a society for the prevention "of cruelty to the weather. And when anyone says anything about this great benefactor he should be locked up in an appropriate place where the winds may not reach him, the sunshine may not strike him, nor the fragrance of the atmosphere may not inspire him. Then may he repent and say: ''Oh, blessed weather, I'll n^ver again say one unkind thing about you !" — Tom Masson, in Fuck.