Hot spring

“ There is a saying which fairly well applies to the high-veldt climate, i.e., that cold and inclement weather is not met with until well in towards summer, especially about the time of spring rains, and that hot weather of any considerable continuance mostly occurs in spring. ”

“ When spring arrives and the hot sun melts most of the snow and some of the ice, water trickles down to the rootlets and arouses growth in the sleeping plant. Internal combustion ensues with the floral tissues. The resulting heat melts the ice about the uprising flower buds and the stem pushes its way upward. More water flows to the roots and finally the plant tunnels a passage to the air and sunshine. ”

“ What can exceed the dazzling splendour of a rising sun, on the trees and bushes, after a night of rain and freezing, when every branch appears like a shining crystal? A prospect grand indeed!
The severe frosts of Winter, with the agitated atmosphere, dispel the sickening fumes which arise from heated and stagnant pools, and decaying vegetation.
This gives health and vigour to the body, and an it were, new spring to thought. Who but has observed the lively sensations of body and mind on a clear frosty morning in winter? ”

“ But soon the frost is creeping down through the stones and earth overhead, the rains are filling the outer doorways and shutting off the supply of fresh air; and one day, though not sound sleepers, the family cuddle down and forget to wake entirely until the frost has begun to creep back toward the surface, and in through the softened soil is felt the thrill of the waking spring. ”

“ As the spring gradually approached, the immense piles of snow that, by alternate thaws and frosts, and repeated storms, had obtained a firmness which threatened a tiresome durability, began to yield to the influence of milder breezes and a warmer sun. The gates of heaven at times seemed to open, and a bland air diffused itself over the earth, when animate and inanimate nature would awaken, and, for a few hours, the gayety of spring shone in every eye and smiled on every field. ”

“ What especially strikes one, however, is the peculiar tone of the light and the atmospheric effects—the chilly whites and grays, the steely reflections, the melancholy brightness of a frigid zone. Winter here gives a stamp to the year, and seems to leave even through spring and summer a kind of scintillating trail of his presence. To me, I confess it is terrible, and I fancy I see constantly in the brilliant sky the hoary genius of the climate brooding grimly over his dominion. ”

“ Now, the trees reared their bare dark branches aloft, for the season was a late one; and Winter, driven from his throne for a few sunshiny days, was returning with increasing force to chase back the approaching Spring. From the gray lowering sky above the snow-flakes were beginning to fall, and, before Flora reached the place of her destination, a brooding storm was wrapping the world in premature night. ”

“ But any day the wind might come down from the north, keen and thick and white about the summits, and leave the flowers and the cony slide covered deep beneath a drift.
Spring, summer, and autumn are all one season, all crowded together—a kind of peak piercing for a few short weeks the long, bleak, unbroken land of winter here on the roof of the world. ”

“ But what has been smitten by the heat and swept away by raging storms is replaced in the first sunshine of spring; and even the devouring fire is not potent enough wholly to destroy what has been spared by the sun and the storms. The spring may seem more potent in tropical lands, but nowhere is it more marvellous than in the steppes, where in its power it stands—alone—opposed to summer, autumn, and winter. ”

“ Winter is staid and dignified and grand with its stark trees and mantle of brown earth, and summer is glowing and glorious; but very young spring is so sappy and curly and yellow and green and lavender that you take it to heart and let it nestle there to suck its pink apple-blow thumb, and curl up its young sprout toes sheltered away from the cold that sets it back and the sun that forces it to break bud. ”

“ Spring came, as it always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. ”

“ Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, under this shameless government—a mixture of east wind, blizzard, snow, rain, slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms—but a sunny, blue-sky'd, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly every year when I was a young man, and things were different. ”

“ It was early summer, or perhaps latter spring, and the most genial weather that either spring or summer ever brought, possessing a character, indeed, as if both seasons had done their utmost to create an atmosphere and temperature most suitable for the enjoyment and exercise of life. To one accustomed to a climate where there is seldom a medium between heat too fierce and cold too deadly, it was a new development in the nature of weather. ”

“ In spring the sun not only exerts an influence through the increased temperature of the air and earth, but its heat passes through ice a foot or more thick, and is reflected from the bottom in shallow water, and so also warms the water and melts the under side of the ice, at the same time that it is melting it more directly above, making it uneven, and causing the air bubbles which it contains to extend themselves upward and downward until it is completely honeycombed, and at last disappears suddenly in a single spring rain. ”

“ All the world knows what a spring this has been. The famous black spring commemorated by Gilbert White can hardly have been more thoroughly ungenial, more fatal to man or beast, to leaf and flower, than this most miserable season, this winter of long days, when the sun shines as if in mockery, giving little more heat than his cold sister the moon, and the bitter north-east produces at one and the same moment the incongruous annoyances of biting cold and suffocating dust. Never was such a season. ”

“ Round about a Spring in Winter. We dwellers in the northern hemisphere naturally think of winter as cold, and shudder at the idea of plunging into the water at this season. The common demand is, if cold must be endured, let it at least be rid of moisture. But all animals are not of this way of thinking. To avoid the cutting blasts of the north wind, the stinging sleet, the pelting hail, and driving snow, many a creature boldly plunges in or hovers about the sparkling waters of every bubbling spring. ”

“ It was toward the end of winter, when amidst the snowstorms and the gloomy, frosty days, the approaching spring sent as a forerunner a clear, warm, sunny day, or but an hour, yet so full of spring, so eagerly young and beaming that sparrows on the streets lost their wits for joy, and people seemed almost as intoxicated. ”

“ The dews of spring fall, summer's vapours fade away, and it is the pure atmosphere of autumn which clearly reveals the distant landscape, and then finally earthly existence is swallowed in the night of winter. ”

“ You have in your climate genial and joyous spring, when nature revives from the dead and puts on her youthful and gay apparel, when the thorn, the citron, and the apple-tree bud and blossom;—beautiful is your spring, the loveliest and most charming season of your year. ”

“ A week of spring days bright in every hour, without a stain or thought of the storm, came in glorious colors, giving still greater pledges of happy life to every living creature of the spring, but a loud, energetic snowstorm possessed every hour of yesterday. Every tree and broken weed bloomed yet once more; all summer distinctions were leveled off; all plants and the very rocks and streams were equally polypetalous.
This morning winter had everything in the valley. The snow drifted about in the frosty wind like meal, and the falls were muffled in thick sheets of frozen spray. ”

“ The spring, as the inhabitants informed us, was ununusually late, and indeed the cold was excessive; as we ascended the mountains, the same clouds which rained on us in the vallies poured forth large flakes of snow thick and fast. The sun occasionally shone through these showers, and illuminated the magnificent ravines of the mountains, whose gigantic pines were some laden with snow, some wreathed round by the lines of scattered and lingering vapor; others darting their dark spires into the sunny sky, brilliantly clear and azure. ”

“ On the other hand, all those which demand moderate protection from sudden frosts, especially from spring frosts, and which flourish when we have a long mild spring and summer, are likely to be reared with especial success. ”

“ He who has lived in the tropical lands of ever-spring—where the leaves never fall, and the flowers never fade—can well confirm the fact: that even spring itself may in time become tiresome! We long for the winter—its frost and snow, and cold bitter winds. ”

“ That angry cloud that left us, driven away before the conquering Spring, now lowers above the northward mountain; we see its livid face and feel its blighting breath—“a hard, dull bitterness of cold,” that sweeps along the moor in noisy triumph, that howls and tears among the trembling trees, and smothers out the last smouldering flame of faded Autumn. ”

“ But Spring in the country,—O season rightly named!—a goddess-queen glides through the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein springs up to meet her and do obeisance. We, gross and heavy, blind and deaf, are slow to catch the flutter of her robes, the music of her footfall, the odor of her breath; the shine of her far-off coming. We call it cold and Winter still. We huddle about the fires and wonder if the Spring will never come ”

“ The rain of spring is brisk, fragrant, charged with life-giving warmth. I welcome it delightedly as it visits the earth, enriches the streams, waters the hills abundantly, makes the furrows soft with showers for the seed, elicits a perfume which I cannot breathe deep enough. ”

“ Snow succeeded, darkening the air, whitening the sky, on the wings of a strong wind from the north of north-west, for a minute only, but again and again, until by five o’clock the sky was all blue except at the horizon, where stood a cluster of white mountains, massive and almost motionless, in the south above the Downs, and round about them some dusky fragments not fit to be used in the composition of such mountains. ”

“ In the shade there is still frost in the ground. Nature, in fact, still hesitates; puts forth one hepatica at a time, and waits to see the result; pushes up the grass slowly, perhaps draws it in at night. ”

“ The cold of the upper regions of the atmosphere modifies and tempers the solar heat, so as to give a most delightful softness, while the uniformity of temperature excludes those sudden and excessive changes which are often experienced in less favored climes. In ascending certain high mountains situated within the torrid zone, the traveller passes, in a short time, through every variety of climate, from the most oppressive and sultry heat, to the soft and balmy air of Spring, which again is succeeded by the cooler breezes of Autumn, and then by the severest frosts of Winter. ”

“ As the warm season advances in summer, and evaporation from the earth is less than the rainfall, there is less and less moisture in the air, when, of course, the conditions for cloud formation, especially inland, are not so favorable as in the early spring or summer. Frequently there comes a time when we have a long season of dry, settled weather. ”

“ The spring came at length with strange suddenness, as it often comes in our northern land, causing a magical change in the face of nature. A green flush overspread the landscape. The skies became soft and tender, with glorious sunsets. ”

“ Spring comes soberly, inaudibly as it were, in these temperate European lands, where the grass holds its green all winter, and the foliage of ivy, laurel, holly, and countless other evergreen shrubs, links the lifeless to the living months. ”

“ Then as the spring drew near, if, indeed, such a word as spring be at all applicable to an abode of utter dreariness, a faint twilight would be just discernible. The illuminated portion of the sky would move round and round the horizon each twenty-four hours, gradually becoming more and more conspicuous, until at last the edge of the sun appeared. ”

“ Then, with scarcely any interval of spring to moderate the sudden extreme change, the winter becomes summer—summer, without its screen of thick leaves to shelter one from the blazing, scorching heat. Everything starts into bloom, as it were, at once ”

“ As it is now, the ice is all cleared out of the way in most parts of the world in the early spring, because the sun and the warm rains get at it, and thus the earth becomes ready in a very short time for the summer. ”

“ Spring rain is beautiful, impartial, lovable. With pearly drops it washes every leaf on tree and bush, ministers equally to salutary herbs and noxious growths, searches out every living thing that needs its beneficence. ”

“ The slight variations in the period of heat in men, in different climates, confirms what has been said as to the action of spring. Villermé having compared the different parts of France, of Europe and even of the two hemispheres, found that the maximum of conceptions is, like this season, more precocious in warm than in cold climates. ”