Blow, west wind, blow,
And fall, oh, gentle rain;
The corn-fields long to hear thy voice,
And woods and orchards will rejoice
To welcome thee again.

Having too much of a good thing, in the matter
of rain, it is only when they suffer from the
want of it that the dwellers in these isles,
whether agriculturists or not, know what a
blessing it is, just as, for a similar reason, most
people undervalue their health, until the angelic
visitant takes leave of them, perhaps to return
no more. After a forty or fifty days' drought,
it would be difficult even for Mr. Babbage,
Professor De Morgan, or Mr. George Bidder, to
count up to within a hundred thousand pounds
or so, the value to the farmers and gardeners of
Great Britain and Ireland of one good drenching
downfall of big round drops continued for
four-and-twenty hours. From the blessings of
the rain, as I was both warm and thirsty, my
thoughts wandered to the blessings of the frost
and the snow, and to the fairest production of
cold, clear, transparent, delicious Ice, such as
Lake Wenham and numberless Norwegian
lakes, whose names no one has thought it worth
while to promulgate, have for long years been
in the habit of supplying to a world not
sufficiently grateful for the luxury. As it happened,
there was a remnant of pure Wenham in the
house, brilliant as the Koh-i-noor, and placing
a lump of the dainty blessing in a goblet, and
pouring thereon the contents of a bottle of
Brighton seltzer, I drank and was refreshed,
and felt a physical as well as a moral conviction
that ice was one of the greatest bounties of
nature, and that those who do not consume it
daily as an addendum to their diet, are ignorant
of a cheap luxury, or thoughtlessly forgo a
healthful gratification to the palate. In the moist
climate of the British Isles, where the commonest
transitions of the weather are from wet to dry,
and dry to wet, we scarcely know what
wholesome cold is, especially the clear, crisp cold that
invigorates the whole system of the healthy
human creature, and sets the blood coursing
merrily through the veins. Sometimes, it is true,
as Shakespeare sings, "The icicles hang by the
wall, and Dick the shepherd bites his nail," to
prevent his finger-tips from being frostbitten,
but such hardy and vigorous seasons are rare
and short as angel visits. Not perhaps more
than once in seven years has the skater a fair
chance for the enjoyment of his beautiful
recreation, but when the ice will bear the
weight of a crowd, it is one of the pleasantest
sights in the world to witness the
delight of the young and the middle-aged
English of both sexes, as they wend their way
to the nearest water, skates in hand, ready for
a pleasure as captivating to most people as the
dance in a ball-room, and a thousand times
more healthful. If there be a happier being in
the world at such a time than a nimble skater
—male or female—it is the small boy upon a
slide, rollicking, uproarious, blissful! Quick
motion with little effort is always delightful, and in
this respect both skating and sliding afford the
nearest approach to bliss and to flying, which
such wingless bipeds as men and women can ever
hope to enjoy in their present state of existence.
"I hate England," said a little Canadian boy of
twelve years old, on board a steamer bound from
New York to Liverpool, and on his way to
school at Harrow. " Why?" said the astonished
captain. " Because there's no skating, and the
rivers never freeze there, and it's always
raining," he replied, sulkily, yet defiantly; " and it's
so jolly in Canada in the winter." Jack Frost,
if not a jack of all trades, is a jack of many. As
an agriculturist, he is as serviceable in
producing a full crop as the sunshine or the rain,
as every farmer will acknowledge. He destroys
the noxious insects, that but for his exterminating
touch would consume the early sown
seed before it had time to germinate. Moreover,
he infuses into the arable earth a chemical
virtue that the warm moist atmosphere does not
always contribute, and of which the beneficial
results are apparent in the summer grass
and the autumnal corn. As a scavenger, he
does more work in a night, by drying up the
miry ways, than a million of men with brooms,
and shovels could do in a week. As an engineer,
he can build a bridge over the Thames or the
St. Lawrence, not exactly so durable as Mr.
Page's at Westminster, or Mr. Stephenson's at
Montreal, but quite as solid as either while it
lasts; and has been known to do such Titanic
work in a single night, which is a feat that
the engineering genius of mere Stephensons,
Brunels, or Pages can never hope to
accomplish. But it is as a working jeweller that
Jack Frost is most conspicuous. By a breath
he can transform the dew upon the grass into
diamonds, make a rose-leaf as beautiful as a
brooch of malachite studded with brilliants,
and convert the flimsy rope of the spider's web
into a string of beaded pearls, such as empresses
might envy, if any human jeweller could execute
in more permanent form an adornment so
lovely. Nor are these the only specimens of
his handiwork. He can trace upon our windows
the most delicate filagree work, to which
imagination can give almost any form it pleases,
from that of the tree, the flower, or the leaf,
to that of the whole forest, the flowing river, or
a miniature Alp-Land, with the simulacra of
Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and the Wetterhorn
in microscopic accuracy. Nature, so full of
beautiful forms, offers nothing more beautiful
in its kind than the icicle, produced by the
mingled action of the sunshine and the frost;
of the sunshine that melts and the frost that
hardens; of the frost that gains the temporary
victory in the struggle, and converts the thawing
snow into pendants of transparent crystal,
glowing in the discomfited sunshine with all the
colours of the rainbow.

He who has never seen an iceberg—and expects
to see one—has, if his expectation be realised, a
glory yet to come, and a terror yet to behold.

One of these floating mountains ran aground,
as a ship might do, some years ago, and stuck