The friendship of art - 1904 Author:Bliss Carman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IT is a New England term, and you may hear the good Bostonian any hot summer day prophesy a sea-turn with falling night. It comes suddenly, too, sometimes nippin... more »g the unwary and mauling the frail. You must be no weakling if you are to live by the sea, even in July. She is a rough nurse, and cherishes her strong sons by the easy process of eliminating their tenderer brothers. The seaboard folk are hardy, you notice. Those who took hurt from the rude play of the elements have been disposed of. They sleep well under the gray stones. I remember one blazing morning several years ago. It had been an insufferable night, when you were content to lounge about theempty streets of Beacon Hill and rest on the deserted stone door-steps. Indoors there was nothing to breathe. Up over this city of dreadful night rose the brassy, unmitigated sun, till the asphalt sizzled in the steaming air. The whole town went to its office in shirtsleeves — almost. Will you believe it? — before noon the newsboys were crying extras of the great change of temperature. The east wind was on us like a frost. The wise ones sought a thicker coat, but the foolish took off their hats, let the cold wind blow under their arms, and many of them never needed a coat again. But for the average being (or perhaps one should say for the normal — that is somewhat better than average), the sea is a wonderful mother. And the dweller by the coast, waiting for the sea-turn to come in on the wings of the east wind, is a mortal favoured beyond his fellows. The cool of the mountains is not the same thing; it is a rare tonic shock, stimulant, thin, and keen, with nothing of themotherly befriending touch of the sea's breath. For the coolness of the hills seems to be what it really is — the exhaustion and vanishing of all warmth, as i...« less