which is about as serious weather as the inhabitant of
that favored clime ever experiences. After a night whose sleep has been
broken by shrieks of the wind and the rattling of doors and windows, I
wake with a dullness of head and sensitiveness of nerve that alone would
be sufficient to tell me that the north wind had risen like a thief in
the night, and had not, according to the manner of that class, stolen
away before morning. On the contrary, he seems to be rushing around with
an energy that betokens a day of it. I dress, and look out of my window.
The bay is a mass of foaming, tossing waves, which, as they break on the
beach just below, cast their spray twenty feet in air. All the little
vessels have come into port, and only a few of the largest ships still
ride heavily at their anchors. The hue separating the shallow water near
the shore from the deeper waters beyond is much farther out than usual,
and is more distinct. Within its boundary, the predominant white is
mixed with a dark, reddish brown; without, the spots of color are
darkest green. The shy has been swept of every particle of cloud and
moisture, and is almost painfully blue. Against it, Mounts Tamalpais and
Diablo stand outlined with startling clearness. The hills and islands
round the bay look as cold and uncomfortable in their robes of bright
green as a young lady who has put on her spring-dress too soon. The
streets and walks are swept bare, but still the air is filled with
flying sand that cuts my face like needles, when, later, overcoated and
gloved to the utmost, I proceed downtown. Such days are Nature's
cleaning days, very necessary to future health and comfort, but, like
all cleaning-days, very unpleasant to go through with. With her
mightiest besom does the old lady sweep all the cobwebs from the sky,
all the dirt and germs of disease from the ground, and remove all specks
and impurities from her air-windows. One or two such "northers" finish
up the season, effectually scaring away all the clouds, thus clearing
the stage for the next act in this annual drama of two acts.

This climate of California is perfectly epitomized in a stanza of the
same poem before quoted:

So each year the season shifted, Wet and warm, and drear and dry,

Half a year-of cloud and flowers, Half a year of dust and sky.

After the Storm.

(Penciled in the bay-window above the Golden Gate, North Beach, San
Francisco, February 20, 1873.)

All day the winds the s