One hundred years ago August has falsified in every way
the promise of July. Since the end of the first week we have had torrents of rain, followed in the last few days by a cold more like that of winter than even late autumn. The harvest has been greatly injured by the rain, excepting, of course, the root crops, which will be greatly benefited by them. In many of the counties the wheat has sprouted again, and hardly any of the crops got in since the 6th have been got in in good condition. The Archbishop of York, in requesting his clergy to use the prayer for fair weather, invites them also to remind their bearers of their utter dependence on the mercy of God, and of the sins which separate them from him — amongst which Dr. Thomson might, perhaps, have specially suggested that angry irritability with bad weather which ordinary men of the world feel quite as much, or more, than farmers. The subidea in Englishmen always is that they ought to be patient under seasonable bad weather, but not under unseasonable, and that they are the best judges of what is seasonable or unseasonable.
Spectator, 3 September 1881
Previous page
