February, detect the kindly odour of approaching spring.
Next, the summer is peculiarly ravishing. Only in that particular spot can one find that fresh, dry perfume which is the scent neither of laurel nor of lemon, but of mingled wormwood, pine, and cherry-blossom. Only there, also, can one find those bright days when the sun's rays are warm, but never scorching, and the sky remains cloudless for three months on end. As the bright days draw on they lengthen, week by week; and during that period the evenings are hot and the nights stifling, while the stars twinkle in the heavens with the welcoming mien of friends. And when rain at length arrives, how beneficent is its coming! Boisterously, richly, merrily it spates forth, like the large, hot tears of a man unexpectedly relieved of care; and as soon as ever it has passed the sun appears with a new smile of love, to dry the fields and the hillocks, and to cause all the countryside to assume an answering smile of delight. How gladly, too, the peasant greets the rain! "The good rain washes us, and the sun will dry us again," is his saying as he exposes his face to the tepid downpour and lets it play upon his shoulders
