At
That Moment Streams Of Chilly Rain-Water Were Coursing Down Across
The Dial Of The Barometer, But It Registered Fair Even Then.
He
said - the American did - that it was the most stationary barometer
he had ever seen, and the most reliable - not vacillating and given
to moods, like most barometers, but fixed and unchangeable in its
habits.
I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring
of 1913 at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern
tourist would venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of
a morning after breakfast. He would think he was cold. He would
have many of the outward indications of being cold. His teeth
would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and inside his white-duck
pants his knees would be knocking together with a low, muffled
sound. He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he felt like
Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look at the thermometer
- sixty-one in the shade! And such was the power of mercury and
mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up and
feel warm.
Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those
fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that
ranged from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer
stood firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened. In a season of
trying climatic conditions it was a great comfort - a boon really
- not only to its owner but to his guests.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 58 of 341
Words from 15450 to 15704
of 93169
