on the invisible wings of the wind, and are seen no more forever.  Empires fall because of a heavy fall of snow.  Storms of rain have more than once caused monarchs to cease to reign.  A hard frost, a sudden thaw, a “hot spell,” a “cold snap,” a contrary wind, a long drought, a storm of sand,—­all these things have had their part in deciding the destinies of dynasties, the fortunes of races, and the fate of nations.  Leave the weather out of history, and it is as if night were left out of the day, and winter out of the year.  Americans have fretted a little because their “Grand Army” could not advance through mud that came up to the horses’ shoulders, and in which even the seven-league boots would have stuck, though they had been worn as deftly as Ariel could have worn them.  They talked as if no such thing had ever before been known to stay the march of armies; whereas all military operations have, to a greater or a lesser extent, depended for their issue upon the softening or the hardening of the earth, or upon the clearing or the clouding of the sky.  The elements have fought against this or that conqueror, or would-be conqueror, as the stars in their courses fought against Sisera; and the Kishon is not the only river that has through its rise put an end to the hopes of a tyrant.  The condition of rivers, which must be owing to the condition of the weather, has often colored events for ages, perhaps forever.  The melting of the snows of the Pyrenees, causing a great rise of the rivers of Northern Spain, came nigh bringing ruin upon Julius Caesar himself; and nothing but the feeble character of the opposing general saved him from destruction.

The preservation of Greece, with all its incalculable consequences, must be credited to the weather.  The first attempt to conquer that country, made by the Persians, failed because of a storm that disabled their fleet.  Mardonius crossed the Hellespont twelve or thirteen years before that feat was accomplished by Xerxes, and he purposed marching as far as Athens.  His army was not unsuccessful, but off Mount Athos the Persian fleet was overtaken by a storm, which destroyed three hundred ships and twenty thousand men.  This compelled him to retreat, and the Greeks gained time to prepare for the coming of their enemy.  But for that storm, Athens would have been taken and destroyed, the Persians having an especial grudge against the Athenians because of their part in the taking and burning of Sardis; and Athens was destined to become Greece for all after-time, so that her as yet dim light could not have been quenched without darkening the whole world.  When Xerxes himself entered Europe, and was apparently about to convert Hellas into a satrapy, it was a storm, or a brace of storms, that saved that country from so sad a fate, and preserved it for the welfare of all after generations of men.  The Great King, in the hope of escaping “the unseen atmospheric enemies which howl around that formidable promontory,” had caused Mount