resolute of heart and courtly as ever, Prince Florizel of Bohemia held
his cigar divan.



TORRID SUMMER.


"Is it very cold?" asks the Prince of Denmark, according to a familiar
reading. No one has any occasion to consult the thermometer before
answering the question, "Is it very hot?" All things combine to prove
that it is very hot. Even the man of metal who used, according to
legend, to patrol the coast of Crete, the man with only one vein from
head to heel, would admit (could he appear in the Machineries at present)
that it is very hot indeed. He might not feel any subjective sensation
of heat (for he seems to have been a mythical anticipation of the
Conquering Machine which is to dominate the world), but he would have
inferred the height of the temperature from a number of phenomena. He
would have seen the ticket-clerks in the railway stations with their
coats off. He would have observed imitation Japanese parasols at a penny
among the ware of enterprising capitalists in the streets. He would have
marked the very street-boys in wide, inexpensive straw hats of various
and astonishing colours. Woman he would have found in beautiful shades
of blue, in such light garments "woven wind" as Theocritus speaks of when
he presents the wife of his doctor with a new ivory distaff.

As to men, they in their attire do show their wit or their want of
courage, as the case may be. It is not easy for modern man, when he
"repairs to the metropolis," to dress up to the heat of the weather. An
ingenious though too hasty philosopher once observed that all men who