WEATHER PROPHECIES.
WE are always talking about the Weather, always interested in it, always trying to foretell it, always grumbling at it, or delighted with it. How long will it be before we know all about it? And what will life be like when we do ? Weather prophecies have hitherto been interesting merely as guesses about a subject which interests us all. Did any one ever come across the absurdest of prophetical almanacka without glancing at that day's prediction to see what the prophet had made of it? Our memories have been stored with sayings about the weather which we learned as children, and which since then have always been at hand to encourage us when they happened to fall in with our wishes ; while if they did not, we could remember failures enough to justify us in disregarding them, and hoping for the best. "Evening red and morning grey," has cheered us a little on the cloudiest of mornings; while such sayings as "Rain before seven, fine at eleven," are so delightfully easy to remember, as almost to suggest the idea that the rhyme must have been considered in the general arrangement. All these rules, however, have admitted of numerous exceptions, but prophecy is now beginning to assume a different aspect. Storms announced as coining do actually come, with more or less violence, as the case may be, and perhaps a little uncertainty in point of time, like slightly unpunctual friends, but nevertheless, they come. Many people may be still inclined to look upon these announcements rather as interesting guesses than in any more practical way. But we are beginning to recognise the fact that if the aim is not always quite accurate, we have to deal with something very different from the random shooting of the makers of almanacks, who were as likely as not to put "stormy" or "much rain" opposite a sultry day in the midst of
a fortnight of parching sunshine. We may hope, as we go on board the steamboat at Newhaven, that the rough weather which was threatened for that particular day will not prove to be any- thing very dreadful, and we may dwell upon the hopeful opinion expressed by the sailor whom we consulted before we made up our minds to start. But half-way across to Dieppe, in the agonies of a horrible passage, we remember the prediction, if we do not forget the sailor. And with our ever-increasing faith comes the inclination to dream of a time when it shalt have a wider range. This is the day of small things, but may there not be a day of greater things reserved for us ?
If we were able to foretell the changes of the weather for some little time to come, as certainly and as accurately as eclipses are foretold, there would be a good many obvious advantages in the knowledge. We should have no more pageants ruined by an un- lucky choice of day, like the opening of the Paris Exhibition, no draggled processions moving under a leaden sky, no crowds of soaked spectators, ankle-deep in mud. Our fire-works would always go off, and our decorations, designed for the sun to shine on, would not be spoilt by the persistent beating of the rain. Our picnics would not always be fixed for the wettest days in the summer, and when we had carefully planned a month's holiday, we should not begin it exactly as the settled weather broke up. But we should very soon discover that our former ignorance had had its unsuspected compensations. Perhaps the first disadvantage that would strike us in the new state of affairs would be the inconvenient crowding which must result from our increased knowledge. We should all be doing the same thing at the same time. Solitude might be enjoyed in a thick fog or a succession of thunderstorms, but every fine day would be like a cheap excursion, when we should turn out with most of our fellow-creatures, and visit beautiful places in troops. That happiness which consists in contemplating the happiness of others would be ours in a far greater degree, but at times we might half wish to recall the days of uncertainty, when holidays were tickets in a lottery, and we took our chances of disappoint- ment together with the chance of a somewhat more solitary en- joyment. And apart from all selfish thoughts, we should really have something to regret. While we utilised all our fine weather with calculating discretion, how often we should miss the glimpses of beauty which sometimes brighten a wet day ! NVe should lose the gleam of sunlight and tender blue between two heavy showers, the momentary lighting-up of dripping foliage, the sudden splendour flaming in the west in some loneliness of soaked heather and spongy turf. It would require great strength of will to face the inevitable drenching, with a deliberate intention of seeing such things ; to ignore the warnings of anxious relatives, prophesying severe colds, and to suppress an uneasy suspicion that possibly it might be rather an idiotic thing to do. And if one did go, defying all possibilities of later repentance, it would be to find that half the charm was gone with the unexpectedness. Though the best point of view might be secured at the precise moment when the weather cleared up, there would be no securing the best mood in which to enjoy the sight. It would be like getting up on purpose to see the sun rise at an unreasonable hour, when one is full of unchristian sentiments. One would be studying oneself all the time to ascertain whether the splendour really did give pleasure enough to make up for the discomfort it had cost, and thus weigh- ing it in the balance, the decision would inevitably be that it did not. It is different when all the weariness and discouragement have been involuntarily endured, and we are helplessly resigned to the day's failure. such glimpses of loveliness come then as pure bounty and delight, because we have expected nothing, and nothing is expected of us. That is the real charm, whether we go through much or little before we arrive at it, and to own the honest truth, if our weather knowledge came to such perfection that it was possible to announce a peculiarly beautiful atmo- spherical effect to be seen without any trouble at half-past three some afternoon, it would be enough to make one take up a book and turn one's back on the window. It is not everybody who can find pleasure in being "personally conducted."
And how much drearier would our wider knowledge make all dreary weather ! We should provide for our rainy days in a new sense. All the tiresome duties of life that could possibly be put off would be reserved for the dull time which was known to be at hand. We should go sadly to bed when a bright week was over, and wake up on the fated morning to the gloomy horror of a thick fog, and the remembrance of the arrears of work which we detested. Wears told now that our letters are not as charming as the gossiping letters of old times. The Penny Post has spoilt them, they say, the swift diffusion of news through other channels, and the feverish hurry of the age. But what will the letters of our de- acendants be like, when they are all written on the dullest days in the Calendar? One wonders, too, what new and harmless subject of talk will be found for people who have no ideas in common. No doubt they will not immediately cease to speak of the weather. "Old use clings," and after the conversation of ages, we must surely be born with a natural bias in that direction. But in course of time the habit must be lost ; they will look on nature with different eyes, and the old weather proverbs of our ancestors will be as useless to them as bows and arrows to our Volunteers. It will become impossible then for any one to please himself with the happy fancy that the skies are smiling on his little projects, and that the slant ray of sunshine which broke through the rain-clouds to shine on the way by which he went to some new enterprise was a hopeful sign. We do not seriously believe it now, and yet there is something pleasantly encouraging in it, as in the parting smile and good wishes of a friend. Nature is so endlessly varying in her moods, that it needs an effort to realise that she takes no heed of ours. But there must be an end of such dreams of sympathy, if we learn to foresee her moods more certainly than our own. We have already given up the comets, which used to rush through space that they might be present at important periods in the world's history, hanging terribly in the heavens at the birth of a hero or the destruction of a city ; and the eclipses, conveying threats in their mysterious shadows ; but it does seem a little hard, that all our wonderful hopes and fears should not influence so much as a chance ray of sunshine on a cloudy day. "Happy the bride the sun shines on," has been said at many weddings, with its touch of superstition and old-fashioned poetry, but we can hardly repeat it when our knowledge of the weather increases till the wedding day is carefully arranged with a view to the sunshine. Not only must we give up all thought of sympathy, but we should even feel a double lack of it, when we saw Nature's moods not only varying in quick succession, but varied at the same moment. When we hear of some great catastrophe now, we sometimes look back and endeavour to recollect how it was with us at that moment, but we can never realise it now as we might realise it then. With wider knowledge, what terrible storms there would be under cloudless skies for those who had husbands or sons at sea, how strange would be that silent presence of the tempest on a windless afternoon, and with what ghostly distinct- ness they would hear the labour of the straining ship and the
fierce rush of the waves, when not so much as a poplar-leaf quivered overhead.
But though it might be easy, it is perhaps hardly worth while to pursue the fancy further. It is not near enough as yet to make it worth much consideration. We may merely remark that if we ever do learn to foretell the weather, there is one discontented class to whom the knowledge will indeed be a boon. The farmers will feel that they have a wider scope. Hitherto they have only been able to grumble at weather past and present, but when they can grumble also at the weather of the future, their sombre horizon will be rounded and complete.
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