“It was summer; the temperature was delightful, about like our October.  The showers were frequent, there was no dust and no sultry air.

“There must be a great deal of nice mechanical work required in St. Petersburg, for on the Nevsky Perspective, the principal street, there were a great many shops in which graduating and measuring instruments of very nice workmanship were for sale.  Especially I noticed the excellence of the thermometers, and I naturally stopped to read them.  Figures are a common language, but it was clear that I was in another planet; I could not read the thermometers!  I judged that the weather was warm enough for the thermometer to be at 68.  I read, say, 16.  And then I remembered that the Russians do not put their freezing point at 32, as we do, and I was obliged to go through a troublesome calculation before I could tell how warm it was.

“But I came to a still stranger experience.  I dated my letters August 3, and went to my banker’s, before I sealed them, to see if there were letters for me.  The banker’s little calendar was hanging by his desk, and the day of the month was on exhibition, in large figures.  I read, July 22!  This was distressing!  Was I like Alice in Wonderland?  Did time go backward?  Surely, I had dated August 3.  Could I be in error twelve days?  And then I perceived that twelve days was just the difference of old and new calendars.

“How many times I had taught students that the Russians still counted their time by the ‘old style,’ but had never learned it myself!  And so I was obliged to teach myself new lessons in science.  The earth turns on its axis just the same in Russia as in Boston, but you don’t get out of the sunlight at the Boston sunset hour.

“When the thermometer stands at 32 in St. Petersburg, it does not freeze as it does in Boston.  On the contrary, it is very warm in St. Petersburg, for it means what 104 does in Boston.  And if you leave London on the 22d of July, and are five days on the way to St. Petersburg, a week after you get there it is still the 22d of July!  And we complain that the day is too short!

“Another peculiarity.  We strolled over the city all day; we came back to our hotel tired; we took our tea; we talked over the day; we wrote to our friends; we planned for the next day; we were ready to retire.  We walked to the window—­the sun was striking on all the chimney tops.  It doesn’t seem to be right even for the lark to go to sleep while the sun shines.  We looked at our watches; but the watches said nine o’clock, and we went off to our beds in daytime; and we awoke after the first nap to perceive that the sun still shone into the room.

“Like all careful aunts, I was unwilling that my nephew should be out alone at night.  He was desirous of doing the right thing, but urged that at home, as a little boy, he was always allowed to be out until dark, and he asked if he could stay out until dark!  Alas for the poor lad!  There was no dark at all!  I could not consent for him to be out all night, and the twilight was not over.  You may read and read that the summer day at St. Petersburg is twenty hours long, but until you see that the sun scarcely sets, you cannot take it in.