BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.
To talk about the weather is the natural English and American mode of
beginning an acquaintance.
This day--the one that glares upon us at our present writing--is eminently
able to melt away what is called the frost of ceremony, and to induce the
primmest of us to throw off all disguises that can possibly be dispensed
with. It is a day to bring the most sophisticated back to first
principles. The very thought of wrapping anything up in mystery, to-day,
brings a thrill like the involuntary protest of the soul against cruelty.
We are not even as anxious as usual to cover up our faults. We hesitate at
enveloping a letter.
The shimmer that lives and moves over yonder dry fallow, as if ten
thousand million fairies were fanning themselves with midges' wings,
fatigues the eye with a notion of unnecessary exertion. Wiser seems yon
glassy pool, moveless, under heavy, not melancholy, boughs. That is
reflecting--keeping one pleasant thought all the time--satisfying itself
with one picture for a whole morning, as we all did while the "Heart of
the Andes" was laid open to our longing gaze. The pool has the advantage
of us, too; for it receives into its waveless bosom the loveliness of sky
and tree without emotion, while we, gazing on the wondrous transcript made
by mortal man of these measureless glories, felt our souls stirred, even
to pain, with a sense of the artist's power, and of the amount of his
precious life that must have gone into such a creation.
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