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 wear velvet coats are atheists.  He probably overstated the amount of intellectual and spiritual audacity to be expected from him who, setting the picturesque before the conventional, dons a coat of velvet.  But it really does require some originality even to wear a white hat and a white waistcoat in a London July.  The heat is never so great but that the majority of males endure black coats and black shiny hats.  The others are in a minority.  The voice of public opinion is not on their side.  “Who stole the moke, Anna?” asked suspicion; and the answer came, “The man in the chapeau blanc.”  There is something daring, something distinctive in a white hat; and it may be doubted whether the amount of comfort obtained by the revolutionary wearer is in a due ratio to the conspicuousness which his action entails on him.  Members of Parliament are singularly emancipated from these fears of the brave; but members of Parliament cannot supply the whole contingent of white-hatted men now to be seen in the streets of the metropolis.  Their presence proves that it is very hot indeed.  One swallow does not make a summer, but half a dozen pairs of “ducks” beheld in public places would mark a summer of unusually high temperature.

There are, of course, alleviations.  Nature compensates all who can afford to purchase the compensations.  Strawberries, long waited for, shy, retiring fruit, have now nearly approached the popular price of sixpence a basket.  A divine of a past generation declared that in his opinion the joys of Paradise would consist of eating strawberries to the sound of a trumpet.  For a poor sixpence half of this transcendental pastime may be partaken of, and probably the brass band which is usually round the corner could supply the sound of the trumpet at a small extra charge.

Unluckily, doctors have decided that many of us must not eat strawberries, nor drink champagne cup, nor iced coffee.  That is the way with doctors.  AEsculapius was originally worshipped in the form of a serpent; in the guise of a serpent he came to Rome.  Medical men still hold of their heroic father, and physicians are the serpents in the Paradise of a warm summer.  Mortals, in their hands, are like Sancho Panza with his medical adviser.  Here is summer, provoking a gentle interest in every method of assuaging thirst, and almost every method is condemned by one member of the faculty or another.  Champagne cannot be so royally sound, nor is shandy-gaff so humble, that it ’scapes whipping.  How melancholy a thing is human life at best!  In boyhood we can eat more ices than our pocket-money enables us to purchase; in maturity we have the pocket-money