JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE.

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.

By the way, if we had energy enough to-day to wish anything, it would be to find ourselves far away amid flashing seas and wild winds, hunting icebergs, with Church for our Columbus, his banner of Excelsior streaming over us, his wondrous eye piercing the distant wreaths of spray, in search of domes and pinnacles of opal and lapis lazuli, turned, now to diamonds, now to marble, by sun and shade. One whose good fortune it was to be with the young discoverer at Niagara, came away with the feeling of having acquired a new sense, by the potent magic of genius.

But to-day, Art is nothing—genius is nothing—but no! that is blasphemous. It is we that are nothing—if not stupid. Dullness is the universe. The grasshoppers are too faint to sing, the birds sit still on the boughs, waiting for the leaves to fan them. Children are wilted into silence and slumberous nonentity; boys do not bathe to-day—they welter, hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and, preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm mercifully left in the middle of her pasture.

A hot day in June is hotter than any other hot day. It finds us cruelly unguarded. After we have been gently baked awhile, the crust thus acquired makes us somewhat tortoise-like and quiescent. If we were condemned to suffer thirty-nine stripes, or even only as many as belong to our flag, would it or would it not be a privilege to take them by degrees, say one on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, etc., in the celebrated progression style, until the whole were accomplished? Or were it better to have the whole at once, and so be done with it? In either case, or in present case, what a blessing to be made pachydermatous! (a learned word lately acquired by ladies, though doubtless long familiar to lords).

But words beginning with the sound of ice, are more agreeable for to-day—such as icicle, isolation, Islip.

Some unhappy critic has said that the "icicle that hangs on Diana's temple" is not colder than other icicles. We pity him, and would like to try the comparison to-day. We have already tried "thinking on the frosty Caucasus," and quite agree with Claudio—was it, or Romeo, or who?—that this is of no service in case of fire.

Delicious music for to-day—the tinkling of ice in the pitcher, as Susan, slowly and carefully, brings up-stairs the water we wait for. It were really a loss to have the way shorter, or the servant a harum-scarum thing who would dash in with her precious burden before one knew it was coming.

We might try, to-day, the latest novelty in cookery, a ball of solid ice wrapped in puff-paste, and baked so adroitly that the paste shall be brown while the ice remains unmelted.

Akin to this, is an antique achievement culinary, as old as Mrs. Glasse, at least—the roasting of a pound of butter, an operation not unlike the very work we are engaged in at this moment—indeed so like it, that the remembrance has occurred several times. Your pound of butter is to be thoroughly crusted in bread-crumbs to begin with, and then put upon the spit and turned before a very hot fire; the unhappy cook standing by to dredge on crumbs continually, to prevent the slippery article from running away. When the crumbs (and cook) are quite roasted, the thing is done.

And so should we be, but that here comes a thunder storm, fit conclusion for an intense day, and very like the sudden and terrific blowings up which terminate the most ferocious kind of friendships. Thick clouds, shaped like piles of cannon balls, have slowly peered up from behind the horizon, and rolled themselves hither and thither, spreading and gathering as they went. Now and then a thunder-whisper is heard, so faint, that if we were conversing, we should not notice it; and an occasional flash of lightning seems, in the sun's glare, like the waving of a curtain by the fitful breeze that begins to touch the pool here and there. The cloud masses gather fresh and fresh accession as they move on, like revolutionary armies marching up to battle. Looking overhead, there seems a field-day in heaven; great bodies of artillery in motion, forming themselves into solid phalanx, and giving more and more dreadful notes of preparation. Volleys tell when divisions join, and the light that announces them is as if the adamantine arch were riven, disclosing dread splendors unspeakable Most grand, most beautiful storm! New music—that of the delicious rain, and in such abundance that it washes away the very memory of the parched and burning day. No wild commotion, no terror! Sublime order and an awe which is like peace. One more proof of the unfailing, tender love of our heavenly Father.