There, since this war, and
the wide and deep national agitation, strange analogies, different
combinations, a different sunlight, or absence of it; different
products even out of the ground. After every great battle, a great
storm. Even civic events the same. On Saturday last, a forenoon like
whirling demons, dark, with slanting rain, full of rage; and then the
afternoon, so calm, so bathed with flooding splendor from heaven's
most excellent sun, with atmosphere of sweetness; so clear, it show'd
the stars, long long before they were due. As the President came out
on the capitol portico, a curious little white cloud, the only one in
that part of the sky, appear'd like a hovering bird, right over him.
Indeed, the heavens, the elements, all the meteorological influences,
have run riot for weeks past. Such caprices, abruptest alternation of
frowns and beauty, I never knew. It is a common remark that (as last
summer was different in its spells of intense heat from any preceding
it,) the winter just completed has been without parallel. It has
remain'd so down to the hour I am writing. Much of the daytime of
the past month was sulky, with leaden heaviness, fog, interstices of
bitter cold, and some insane storms. But there have been samples
of another description. Nor earth nor sky ever knew spectacles of
superber beauty than some of the nights lately here. The western star,
Venus, in the earlier hours of evening, has never been so large,
so clear; it seems as if it told something, as if it held rapport
indulgent with humanity, with us Americans.
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