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Encouraged by the birds, by the bursting of the lilac-buds, by the
peeping-up of the crocuses, by tradition, by the sweet flutterings of
a double hope, another sign appears. This is the Easter bonnets, most
delightful flowers of the year, emblems of innocence, hope, devotion.
Alas that they have to be worn under umbrellas, so much thought,
freshness, feeling, tenderness have gone into them! And a northeast
storm of rain, accompanied with hail, comes to crown all these virtues
with that of self-sacrifice. The frail hat is offered up to the
implacable season. In fact, Nature is not to be forestalled nor hurried
in this way. Things cannot be pushed. Nature hesitates. The woman who
does not hesitate in April is lost. The appearance of the bonnets is
premature. The blackbirds see it. They assemble. For two days they hold
a noisy convention, with high debate, in the tree-tops. Something is
going to happen.

Say, rather, the usual thing is about to occur. There is a wind called
Auster, another called Eurus, another called Septentrio, another
Meridies, besides Aquilo, Vulturnus, Africus. There are the eight great
winds of the classical dictionary,–arsenal of mystery and terror and of
the unknown,–besides the wind Euroaquilo of St. Luke. This is the wind
that drives an apostle wishing to gain Crete upon the African Syrtis. If
St. Luke had been tacking to get to Hyannis, this wind would have forced
him into Holmes’s Hole. The Euroaquilo is no respecter of persons.

These winds, and others unnamed and more terrible, circle about New
England. They form a ring about it: they lie in wait on its borders,
but only to spring upon it and harry it. They follow each other in
contracting circles, in whirlwinds, in maelstroms of the atmosphere:
they meet and cross each other, all at a moment. This New England is set
apart: it is the exercise-ground of the weather. Storms bred elsewhere
come here full-grown: they come in couples, in quartets, in choruses.
If New England were not mostly rock, these winds would carry it off; but
they would bring it all back again, as happens with the sandy portions.
What sharp Eurus carries to Jersey, Africus brings back. When the air
is not full of snow, it is full of dust. This is called one of the
compensations of Nature.

This is what happened after the convention of the blackbirds: A moaning
south wind brought rain; a southwest wind turned the rain to snow; what
is called a zephyr, out of the west, drifted the snow; a north wind
sent the mercury far below freezing. Salt added to snow increases the
evaporation and the cold. This was the office of the northeast wind: it
made the snow damp, and increased its bulk; but then it rained a little,
and froze, thawing at the same time. The air was full of fog and
snow and rain. And then the wind changed, went back round the circle,
reversing everything, like dragging a cat by its tail. The mercury
approached zero. This was nothing uncommon. We know all these winds. We
are familiar with the different “forms of water.”

All this was only the prologue, the overture. If one might be permitted
to speak scientifically, it was only the tuning of the instruments. The
opera was to come,–the Flying Dutchman of the air.

There is a wind called Euroclydon: it would be one of the Eumenides;
only they are women. It is half-brother to the gigantic storm-wind of
the equinox. The Euroclydon is not a wind: it is a monster. Its breath
is frost. It has snow in its hair. It is something terrible. It peddles
rheumatism, and plants consumption.