Wetter

“ But what matters time? Its only true measure lies in what a man does in it. Wetter's momentary halt was long enough for one of those glances of his to play over the group we made. From face to face it ran, a change of expression marking every stage. It rested at last on me. I turned my head sharply toward Elsa; her cheek was flushed; her eyes glistened; her body was bent forward in an eagerness of attention, as though she would not lose a word. Varvilliers was given over to the spirit of his talk, but he watched the sparks that he struck from her eyes. ”

“ Claxton, you had better drop all that nonsense with me?'
Alice scarcely understood his words, but there was no mistaking the marked insolence of his tone. 'I--I don't understand you,' she said, in amazement.
'O, yes, you do!' said Mr. Wetter, with the same lazy air. 'I am not Mr. Statham, you know, nor one of your neighbours in the terrace here. I am a man of the world, and understand these matters. Don't talk about dead husbands to me!'
For an instant Alice stood petrified. For an instant a vague idea flashed across her that John might not be dead after all. ”

“ There is too much old-fashioned Romanticism in the idea of the dead father in his black robes standing outside, knocking at the window. The next poem, Das ist ein schlechtes Wetter, is a most masterly production. We see the little old woman hobbling across the street with her lantern late on the dark and stormy evening, to make purchases for her tall, beautiful daughter, who is lying in the arm-chair at home, blinking sleepily at the light, her golden locks falling over her sweet face—it is like an old Dutch painting. ”

“ Strange thoughts for a man not yet grown? I am not altogether of that mind. For then my trust seemed very great, almost holy, armed with majesty; I had not learned the little real power that lay in it. To-day, if I threw away my crown, I should not exaggerate the value of my sacrifice. Then it seemed that I gave a great thing, and great was my betrayal. Therefore I could not rest for the thought of what I had put my hand to, chafed at Wetter's words that sounded now like a taunt, and seemed again to see old Hammerfeldt dying and to flush red in shame before the utterance of his eyes. ”

“ I had allowed myself to fall into a habit of thought which led me to assume that my happiness or unhappiness was a relevant consideration in judging of the merits of the universe. The assumption is so common as to make us forget that so far from being proved it is not even plausible. I saw the absurdity of it at once, in the light of my recent discoveries. Was God shamed because Struboff was miserable, because Coralie was serenely selfish, because Wetter was tempestuous beyond rescue? ”

“ Now we waited only for Coralie. With her coming we should be complete.
The music began. By arrangement or impulse, I knew not which, everybody rose to their feet. Only Elsa and I sat still. The curtain rose and Coralie was revealed in her rare beauty and her matchless calm. A moment later the great full feelingless voice filled the theatre; she had had no doubt that she could fill the theatre. I saw Struboff leaning back in his chair, his shoulders eloquent of despair; I saw Wetter with straining eyes and curling lips, Varvilliers smiling in mischievous remembrance of our rehearsal. ”

“ Wetter, Lake, one of the largest lakes in Sweden, 70 m. long, 13 m. broad, and 270 ft. above the sea-level; its clear blue waters are fed by hidden springs, it rises and falls periodically, and is sometimes subject to sudden agitations during a calm.
Wetterhorn (i. e. peak of tempests) , a high mountain of the Bernese Oberland, with three peaks each a little over 12,000 ft. in height.
Wexford (111) , a maritime county in Leinster, Ireland; is an agricultural county, and exports large quantities of dairy produce; has a capital (11) of the same name, a seaport at the mouth of the river Slaney. ”

“ In winter the skating is good. The life of the town goes on as before. Business and pleasure occupy the people as usual. Occasionally a man who has partaken of too much wine falls into Broadway and is drowned, and now and then a sloop is wrecked while rounding the windy corner from Broadway into Twenty-third Street, but no one is killed or maimed by the street cars, or rudely hustled into eternity by a fool in an automobile. Wetter New York is a nice place in which to live.
John D. Markright is now a well man, and he is profuse in his thanks to me. ”

“ In 1754 he was promoted to the lieut.-colonelcy of the regiment, and proceeding to Germany in the summer of 1758, he was present at nearly every general engagement and skirmish in which British cavalry were employed, during the remainder of the seven years' war, and on several occasions he commanded a brigade of heavy dragoons: he was twice wounded, viz.: at Wetter, in August, 1759, where he surprised a French corps, and took many prisoners, and at Campen, in October, 1760. ”

“ And in summer and winter, from north, south, east, or west, the wind brings us news from the sea: the savor of salt, gray billows of cloud and fog, clear stark bright days following one another through a season. The southwest gales of summer beat down ripe grasses in the field and feather willow and poplar with silver; the great autumn gales go trumpeting through the land; the nor’easter sends surf thundering on the outer shore; and there are the soft moist winds that relax the high-wrought tension of humans, and melt the rigors of winter. ”

“ It is this that makes our sky be cloudy or clear; that produces rain and sunshine, snow and hail, refreshing coolness in summer and warmth sometimes in midwinter, as also chilly nights in summer and thaw in winter. In other words, it is more properly the motion of the air, the wind, that produces what we call weather; that is, that changeableness from heat to cold, from dryness to moisture, all of which may be comprised in one name, weather. ”

“ If the Sun rises distorted in form, showers may be looked for in summer, but settled weather in winter.
When the first indications of day light are seen above a bank of clouds, it is called a “high dawn.” When the day breaks on or near the horizon, the first streaks of light being low down, it is called a “low dawn.” A high dawn presages wind; a low dawn fair weather.
If the Sun rises red, with blackish beams, in a haze, rain may be expected; if the western sky is red, wind. ”

“ At night the direction of the wind is reversed, that is, it blows from the land to the sea. Why? Because the land during the day retains its heat, while the water diffuses it. What is the result? The air on the land expands, becomes light. The air over the water being cool, it does not expand, and the result is that it presses toward the land. At night the land loses its heat more rapidly than the water, so that it is not long before the land is cooler than the water, and when this happens, the air over the land, which has become cooler, presses seaward. ”

“ In spring and autumn a sudden fall indicates rain; in the summer, if very hot, it foretells a storm. In the winter, after a period of steady frost, a fall prognosticates a change of wind with rain and hail; whilst a rise announces the approach of snow.
6. Rapid oscillations of the mercury either way are not to be interpreted as indicating either wet or dry weather of any duration; continuance of either fair or foul weather is forecast only by a prolonged and steady rise or fall beforehand. ”

“ It is a common Observation, and a very true one, that there is usually fair Weather before a settled course of Rain. The Winds that bring the dark rainy Clouds that obscure the Sky, and cause dull cloudy Weather, often raise these Vapours to such a height, that they are attracted into the cold Region above our Sight, till being condensed there, they fall down upon us again in Snow or Rain, according to our Author's Observation. ”

“ In weather which is showery rather than steadily wet, when between the intervals of sunshine a cloud appears in the W., passes over the spectator, and as it passes pours down a considerable quantity of rain, if the barometer be watched from the time of the cloud's appearance in the W., to its appearance in the E., it will be observed to fall a little and then to recover its original level, the fall being quite a local one. ”

“ The sombre skies and changeable—alternately chilly and sultry—weather of our latitudes are replaced by a regular temperature and good settled weather. Each one rejoices in the glorious heavens, in which none save the little trade-clouds are to be seen—which clouds in the trade-winds region make the sunset so enchanting. ”

“ The days go by and grow to weeks, the weeks lengthen to months, and still no rain. The sun pours down his burning rays, which become hotter as the season advances; the sky is blue and beautiful over the hills—beautiful, but pitiless to the bleating flocks beneath. The breeze comes up from the south, bringing with it white clouds sailing at an immense height, with openings between like azure lakes or aerial Mediterraneans landlocked by banks of vapour. ”

“ Daylight, gray and violent, steals through the cloud-pall and shows a foaming sea that flattens under the weight of recurrent and increasing squalls. Then comes the rain, filling the windy valleys of the sea with milky smoke and further flattening the waves, which but wait for the easement of wind and rain to leap more wildly than before. ”

“ When you see hard-edged clouds, look for wind. When you see delicate soft clouds, look for fine weather and probably moderate breeze or high breeze. When you see gloomy dark clouds in a blue sky, look for slight winds. When you see a bright blue sky through fine clouds that are soft and delicate, this indicates fine weather. When you see soft-looking clouds, you can expect less wind, but probably rain. But when the clouds become hard and ragged, tufted and rolling in appearance, stronger winds are coming. When you see small clouds that are inky looking, look for rain. ”

“ Not unfrequently in a moist summer season, after a day of showers or rain, which have had an extending formation or lateral extension from north to south, it will commence blowing in the morning, and encourage the hay-maker with the hope of fine weather. ”

“ The direction from which the wind is blowing usually indicates what the weather will be for the day,—wet or dry, hot or cold,—but here is a rhymed prediction which puts all such prophecies to shame:—
“The West wind always brings wet weather
The East wind wet and cold together,
The South wind surely brings us rain,
The North wind blows it back again. ”

“ If the sky turns bright yellow late in the afternoon, it generally indicates that rain is near at hand. Unusual colorations, particularly of deep intense color, indicate wind or rain.
The following appearances indicate a change in the weather: When the atmosphere is clear and crystalline and the stars appear extremely bright; when the background of the horizon seems to be pinned up against the foreground; when the clouds form into delicate white film-like mist way up overhead. ”

“ That, as in the polar regions, and whether the sun be present or absent, or obscured by clouds, and by night as well as by day, the changes from warm to cold and from cold to warm are sudden and great, and that the latter are connected with the fall of rain and snow—that every where in winter it moderates to storm. ”

“ We now know that the forceful, dominating peoples come out of the regions where the heat is not so great as to debilitate, nor the cold so fierce as to deaden the mental and the physical faculties; but rather from the region of the thoroughfare of the great circum-polar storm tracks, where there are frequent changes of weather from sunshine to clouds, and where there is a fairly wide difference in temperature between night and day and between winter and summer. ”

“ The clouds not only promote the precipitation which takes place in this region, but they also cause the rains to fall on places where they are most required, shading the surface from which the heating rays of the sun are to be excluded, and thus giving tone to the atmospherical circulation of the world and vigour to its vegetation. You have often, when the sun is sending his rays with great heat down on the earth, seen the atmosphere dancing, as it were, and trembling. ”

“ Not a breath of air relieved the intense and oppressive heat of the atmosphere, unusual here, where pleasant summer breezes, and sometimes stronger gales, blow over the elevated plains with the regularity of trade-winds. ”

“ The clouds and storm rapidly pass over eastward, and the wind falls, while the sun warms the air, and in a few minutes removes every trace of hail or snow. Thus we were often treated to winter and summer weather, with all the gradations between, several times over in the space of an hour. ”

“ For the changeableness of the weather depends on the nature and motion of the air, and on the amount of moisture, and the direction of the winds. It is mostly occasioned by currents of air which pass over the earth, producing, wherever they meet, here cold, there heat—here rain, there hail or snow. ”

“ A negative instance is exhibited in weather by its coldness with an east or north wind, beyond what the season would lead us to expect, just as the contrary takes place with the south or west winds. An inclination to rain (especially in winter) attends warm weather, and to frost cold weather. ”

“ Slowly falling barometer, high and rising temperature, sky of dull, whitish appearance, resembling haze near horizon; cirrus clouds followed by dense masses of cumulus; wind in light puffs from an easterly direction. ”