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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 01:19:52 -0700 |
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diff --git a/20204-h/20204-h.htm b/20204-h/20204-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6946316 --- /dev/null +++ b/20204-h/20204-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3514 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Storm-Cloud of the + Nineteenth Century, by John Ruskin. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 3%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + color: silver; background-color: inherit; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */ + + .pagenum a {text-decoration: none; color: silver; background-color: inherit;} + + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .blockquot2{margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .blockquot3{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} + p.citation { /* author citation at end of blockquote or poem */ + text-align: right; + font-style: italic; + } + p.quotdate { /* date of a letter aligned right */ + text-align: right; + } + p.quotsig { /* author signature at end of letter */ + margin-left: 15%; + text-indent: -4em; /* gimmick to move 2nd line right */ + } + p.quotsig2 { /* author signature at end of letter */ + margin-left: 50%; + text-indent: -7em; /* gimmick to move 2nd line right */ + } + p.greek { /* Greek translations */ + margin-left: 25%; + } + p.greek2 { /* Greek translations */ + margin-left: 20%; + } + ins {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted red;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + a {text-decoration: none;} + a[name] {position:absolute; /* Fix Opera bug */} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: .35em; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + .footnote2 { /* nested footnotes */ + margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote2 .label {position: absolute; right: 80%; text-align: right;} + .super {line-height: 1.4em;} + .spaced sup {line-height: .0;} + div.poem { /* inset poem 5% on each side */ + text-align:left; /* make sure no justification attempted */ + margin-left:5%; /* 5% from the left */ + width:90%; /* 5% from the right, & fix IE6 abs.pos. bug */ + position: relative; /* container for .linenum positions */ + } + .poem .stanza { /* set vertical space between stanzas */ + margin-top: 1em; + } + .stanza span, /* each line as generated by Guiguts.. */ + .stanza div, /* ..and as could be marked in div.. */ + + .stanza br { /* br's generated by Guiguts ignored by CSS browsers */ + display: none; /* Lynx doesn't see this, so executes br */ + } + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century, by John Ruskin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century + Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February + 4th and 11th, 1884 + +Author: John Ruskin + +Release Date: December 28, 2006 [EBook #20204] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORM-CLOUD *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Suzan Flanagan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class='center'> +<p><br /></p> +<table border="1" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary="Transcriber's Note"> +<tr><td align='left'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: +<p> +This e-text includes accented Greek letters. If any of these characters do not display properly—in particular, +if the diacritic does not appear directly above or below the +letter—you may have an incompatible browser or unavailable fonts. +If the problem cannot be resolved, use the plain-text file instead.</p> +<p> +Corrections are noted in the <a href="#TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES">Transcriber's Notes</a> at the end of the e-text, +and typos are shown with <ins title="like this">popups</ins> underlined in red.<br /> +</p></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<h3>THE COMPLETE WORKS</h3> +<h4><span class="smcap">of</span></h4> +<h2>JOHN RUSKIN</h2> +<h4>VOLUME XXIV</h4> +<hr style="width: 10%;" /> +<h3>OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US</h3> +<h3>STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY</h3> +<h3>HORTUS INCLUSUS</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i" href="#Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> +<h2 style="margin-bottom: .5em">THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE</h2> +<h2 style="margin-top: .5em">NINETEENTH CENTURY.</h2> +<p><br /></p> +<h3>TWO LECTURES</h3> + +<h4>DELIVERED AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION</h4> + +<h4>FEBRUARY <span class="smcap">4th AND 11th</span>, 1884.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii" href="#Page_ii">[ii]</a></span></p> +<h3>CONTENTS.</h3> +<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:60%;" /> +<col style="width:40%;" /> +<tr><td></td><td align="right"><span class="smcap">page</span></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Preface</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_iii">iii</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lecture I. (February 4)</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lecture II. (February 11)</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii" href="#Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> + +<h3>PREFACE.</h3> + +<p>The following lectures, drawn up under the pressure of +more imperative and quite otherwise directed work, contain +many passages which stand in need of support, and some, I +do not doubt, more or less of correction, which I always prefer +to receive openly from the better knowledge of friends, +after setting down my own impressions of the matter in +clearness as far as they reach, than to guard myself against +by submitting my manuscript, before publication, to annotators +whose stricture or suggestion I might often feel pain in +refusing, yet hesitation in admitting.</p> + +<p>But though thus hastily, and to some extent incautiously, +thrown into form, the statements in the text are founded on +patient and, in all essential particulars, accurately recorded +observations of the sky, during fifty years of a life of solitude +and leisure; and in all they contain of what may seem to +the reader questionable, or astonishing, are guardedly and +absolutely true.</p> + +<p>In many of the reports given by the daily press, my assertion +of radical change, during recent years, in weather aspect +was scouted as imaginary, or insane. I am indeed, every day +of my yet spared life, more and more grateful that my mind +is capable of imaginative vision, and liable to the noble +dangers of delusion which separate the speculative intellect +of humanity from the dreamless instinct of brutes: but I +have been able, during all active work, to use or refuse my +power of contemplative imagination, with as easy command +of it as a physicist's of his telescope: the times of morbid are +just as easily distinguished by me from those of healthy +vision, as by men of ordinary faculty, dream from waking; +nor is there a single fact stated in the following pages which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv" href="#Page_iv">[iv]</a></span> +I have not verified with a chemist's analysis, and a geometer's +precision.</p> + +<p>The first lecture is printed, with only addition here and +there of an elucidatory word or phrase, precisely as it was +given on the 4th February. In repeating it on the 11th, I +amplified several passages, and substituted for the concluding +one, which had been printed with accuracy in most of the +leading journals, some observations which I thought calculated +to be of more general interest. To these, with the +additions in the first text, I have now prefixed a few explanatory +notes, to which numeral references are given in the +pages they explain, and have arranged the fragments in connection +clear enough to allow of their being read with ease +as a second Lecture.</p> + +<p class="quotsig"> +<span class="smcap">Herne Hill</span>, <i>12th March, 1884</i>.<br /> +</p> +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v" href="#Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> +<h3>THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH<br /> +CENTURY.</h3> + +<hr style="width: 95%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1" href="#Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH<br /> +CENTURY.</h2> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>Let me first assure my audience that I have no <i>arrière +pensée</i> in the title chosen for this lecture. I might, indeed, +have meant, and it would have been only too like me to mean, +any number of things by such a title;—but, to-night, I mean +simply what I have said, and propose to bring to your notice +a series of cloud phenomena, which, so far as I can weigh +existing evidence, are peculiar to our own times; yet which +have not hitherto received any special notice or description +from meteorologists.</p> + +<p>So far as the existing evidence, I say, of former literature +can be interpreted, the storm-cloud—or more accurately +plague-cloud, for it is not always stormy—which I am about +to describe to you, never was seen but by now living, or +<i>lately</i> living eyes. It is not yet twenty years that this—I +may well call it, wonderful, cloud has been, in its essence, +recognizable. There is no description of it, so far as I have +read, by any ancient observer. Neither Homer nor Virgil, +neither Aristophanes nor Horace, acknowledge any such +clouds among those compelled by Jove. Chaucer has no +word of them, nor Dante;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Milton none, nor Thomson. In +modern times, Scott, Wordsworth and Byron are alike unconscious +of them; and the most observant and descriptive +of scientific men, De Saussure, is utterly silent concerning +them. Taking up the traditions of air from the year before +Scott's death, I am able, by my own constant and close +observation, to certify you that in the forty following years +(1831 to 1871 approximately—for the phenomena in ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2" href="#Page_2">[2]</a></span>tion +came on gradually)—no such clouds as these are, and +are now often for months without intermission, were ever +seen in the skies of England, France, or Italy.</p> + +<p>In those old days, when weather was fine, it was luxuriously +fine; when it was bad—it was often abominably +bad, but it had its fit of temper and was done with it—it +didn't sulk for three months without letting you see the sun,—nor +send you one cyclone inside out, every Saturday afternoon, +and another outside in, every Monday morning.</p> + +<p>In fine weather the sky was either blue or clear in its light; +the clouds, either white or golden, adding to, not abating, the +luster of the sky. In wet weather, there were two different +species of clouds,—those of beneficent rain, which for distinction's +sake I will call the non-electric rain-cloud, and +those of storm, usually charged highly with electricity. The +beneficent rain-cloud was indeed often extremely dull and +gray for days together, but gracious nevertheless, felt to be +doing good, and often to be delightful after drought; capable +also of the most exquisite coloring, under certain conditions;<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +and continually traversed in clearing by the rainbow:—and, +secondly, the storm-cloud, always majestic, often +dazzlingly beautiful, and felt also to be beneficent in its own +way, affecting the mass of the air with vital agitation, and +purging it from the impurity of all morbific elements.</p> + +<p>In the entire system of the Firmament, thus seen and +understood, there appeared to be, to all the thinkers of those +ages, the incontrovertible and unmistakable evidence of a +Divine Power in creation, which had fitted, as the air for +human breath, so the clouds for human sight and nourishment;—the +Father who was in heaven feeding day by day +the souls of His children with marvels, and satisfying them +with bread, and so filling their hearts with food and gladness.</p> + +<p>Their <i>hearts</i>, you will observe, it is said, not merely their +bellies,—or indeed not at all, in this sense, their bellies—but +the heart itself, with its blood for this life, and its faith +for the next. The opposition between this idea and the +notions of our own time may be more accurately expressed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3" href="#Page_3">[3]</a></span> +modification of the Greek than of the English sentence. The +old Greek is—</p> + +<p class="greek">ἐμπιπλῶν +τροφῆς καὶ +ἐυφροσύνης<br /> +τὰς καρδίας +ήμῶν.</p> + +<p>filling with meat, and cheerfulness, our hearts. The modern +Greek should be—</p> + +<p class="greek"> +ἐμπιπλῶν +ἀνέμου καὶ +ἀφροσύνης<br /> +τὰς γαστέρας +ἡμῶν. +</p> + +<p>filling with wind, and foolishness, our stomachs.</p> + +<p>You will not think I waste your time in giving you two +cardinal examples of the sort of evidence which the higher +forms of literature furnish respecting the cloud-phenomena +of former times.</p> + +<p>When, in the close of my lecture on landscape last year at +Oxford, I spoke of stationary clouds as distinguished from +passing ones, some blockheads wrote to the papers to say that +clouds never were stationary. Those foolish letters were so +far useful in causing a friend to write me the pretty one I +am about to read to you, quoting a passage about clouds in +Homer which I had myself never noticed, though perhaps +the most beautiful of its kind in the Iliad. In the fifth +book, after the truce is broken, and the aggressor Trojans are +rushing to the onset in a tumult of clamor and charge, +Homer says that the Greeks, abiding them "stood like +clouds." My correspondent, giving the passage, writes as +follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Last winter when I was at Ajaccio, I was one day +reading Homer by the open window, and came upon the +lines—</p> + +<p class="greek2"> +Ἀλλ᾽ ἔμενον, νεφέλῃσιν ἐοικότες ἅς τε Κρονίων<br /> +Νηνεμίης ἔστησεν ἐπ᾽ ἀκροπόλοισιν ὄρεσσιν,<br /> +Ἀτρέμας, ὄφρ᾽ εὕδῃσι μένος Βορέαο καὶ ἄλλων<br /> +Ζαχρειῶν ἀνέμων, οἵ τε νέφεα σκιόεντα<br /> +Πνοιῇσιν λυγυρῇσι διασκιδνᾶσιν ἀέντες‧<br /> +<ins title="Transcriber's Note:typo for Ὡς">Ὡσ</ins> Δαναοὶ Τρῶας μένον ἔμπεδον, οὐδ᾽ ἐφέβοντο.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4" href="#Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> +<p>'But they stood, like the clouds which the Son of Kronos +stablishes in calm upon the mountains, motionless, when the +rage of the North and of all the fiery winds is asleep.' As I +finished these lines, I raised my eyes, and looking across the +gulf, saw a long line of clouds resting on the top of its hills. +The day was windless, and there they stayed, hour after +hour, without any stir or motion. I remember how I was +delighted at the time, and have often since that day thought +on the beauty and the truthfulness of Homer's simile.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps this little fact may interest you, at a time when +you are attacked for your description of clouds.</p> + +<p class="quotsig2"> +"I am, sir, yours faithfully,<br /> +<span class="smcap">G. B. Hill</span>."<br /> +</p></div> + +<p>With this bit of noonday from Homer, I will read you a +sunset and a sunrise from Byron. That will enough express +to you the scope and sweep of all glorious literature, from the +orient of Greece herself to the death of the last Englishman +who loved her.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> I will read you from 'Sardanapalus' the +address of the Chaldean priest Beleses to the sunset, and of +the Greek slave, Myrrha, to the morning.</p> +<p><br /></p> +<p style="margin-left: 3em;">"The sun goes down: methinks he sets more slowly,<br /> +Taking his last look of Assyria's empire.<br /> +How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a><br /> +Like the blood he predicts.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> If not in vain,<br /> +Thou sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise,<br /> +I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray<br /> +The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble<br /> +For what he brings the nations, 't is the furthest<br /> +Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm!<br /> +An earthquake should announce so great a fall—<br /> +A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk<br /> +To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon<br /> +Its everlasting page the end of what<br /> +Seem'd everlasting; but oh! thou <span class="smcap">true</span> sun!<br /> +<i>The burning oracle of all that live</i>,<br /> +<i>As fountain of all life</i>, and <i>symbol of</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5" href="#Page_5">[5]</a></span><br /> +<i>Him who bestows it</i>, wherefore dost thou limit<br /> +Thy lore unto calamity?<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Why not<br /> +Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine<br /> +All-glorious burst from ocean? why not dart<br /> +A beam of hope athwart the future years,<br /> +As of wrath to its days? Hear me! oh, hear me!<br /> +I am thy worshiper, thy priest, thy servant—<br /> +I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall,<br /> +And bow'd my head beneath thy mid-day beams,<br /> +When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd<br /> +For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee,<br /> +And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee,<br /> +And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd—but<br /> +Only to thus much. While I speak, he sinks—<br /> +Is gone—and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge,<br /> +To the delighted west, which revels in<br /> +Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is<br /> +Death, so it be but glorious? 'T is a sunset;<br /> +And mortals may be happy to resemble<br /> +The gods but in decay."<br /> +</p> + +<p>Thus the Chaldean priest, to the brightness of the setting +sun. Hear now the Greek girl, Myrrha, of his rising.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The day at last has broken. What a night<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hath usher'd it! How beautiful in heaven!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though varied with a transitory storm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More beautiful in that variety:<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">How hideous upon earth! where peace, and hope,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love, and revel, in an hour were trampled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By human passions to a human chaos,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not yet resolved to separate elements:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'T is warring still! And can the sun so rise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So bright, so rolling back the clouds into<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And billows purpler than the ocean's, making<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6" href="#Page_6">[6]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So like,—we almost deem it permanent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So fleeting,—we can scarcely call it aught<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond a vision, 't is so transiently<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scatter'd along the eternal vault: and yet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blends itself into the soul, until<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sorrow and of love."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>How often <i>now</i>—young maids of London,—do you make +<i>sunrise</i> the 'haunted epoch' of either?</p> + +<p>Thus much, then, of the skies that used to be, and clouds +"more lovely than the unclouded sky," and of the temper of +their observers. I pass to the account of clouds that <i>are</i>, +and—I say it with sorrow—of the <i>dis</i>temper of <i>their</i> observers.</p> + +<p>But the general division which I have instituted between +bad-weather and fair-weather clouds must be more carefully +carried out in the sub-species, before we can reason of it +farther: and before we begin talk either of the sub-genera +and sub-species, or super-genera and super-species of cloud, +perhaps we had better define what <i>every</i> cloud is, and must +be, to begin with.</p> + +<p>Every cloud that can be, is thus primarily definable: +"Visible vapor of water floating at a certain height in the +air." The second clause of this definition, you see, at once +implies that there is such a thing as visible vapor of water +which does <i>not</i> float at a certain height in the air. You are +all familiar with one extremely cognizable variety of that +sort of vapor—London Particular; but that especial blessing +of metropolitan society is only a strongly-developed and +highly-seasoned condition of a form of watery vapor which +exists just as generally and widely at the bottom of the air, +as the clouds do—on what, for convenience' sake, we may +call the top of it;—only as yet, thanks to the sagacity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7" href="#Page_7">[7]</a></span> +scientific men, we have got no general name for the bottom +cloud, though the whole question of cloud nature begins in +this broad fact, that you have one kind of vapor that lies to +a certain depth on the ground, and another that floats at a +certain height in the sky. Perfectly definite, in both cases, +the surface level of the earthly vapor, and the roof level of +the heavenly vapor, are each of them drawn within the depth +of a fathom. Under <i>their</i> line, drawn for the day and for +the hour, the clouds will not stoop, and above <i>theirs,</i> the +mists will not rise. Each in their own region, high or deep, +may expatiate at their pleasure; within that, they climb, or +decline,—within that they congeal or melt away; but below +their assigned horizon the surges of the cloud sea may not +sink, and the floods of the mist lagoon may not be swollen.</p> + +<p>That is the first idea you have to get well into your minds +concerning the abodes of this visible vapor; next, you have +to consider the manner of its visibility. Is it, you have to +ask, with cloud vapor, as with most other things, that they +are seen when they are there, and not seen when they are +not there? or has cloud vapor so much of the ghost in it, that +it can be visible or invisible as it likes, and may perhaps be +all unpleasantly and malignantly there, just as much when +we don't see it, as when we do? To which I answer, comfortably +and generally, that, on the whole, a cloud is where +you see it, and isn't where you don't; that, when there's an +evident and honest thundercloud in the northeast, you +needn't suppose there's a surreptitious and slinking one in the +northwest;—when there's a visible fog at Bermondsey, it +doesn't follow there's a spiritual one, more than usual, at the +West End: and when you get up to the clouds, and can +walk into them or out of them, as you like, you find when +you're in them they wet your whiskers, or take out your +curls, and when you're out of them, they don't; and therefore +you may with probability assume—not with certainty, observe, +but with probability—that there's more water in the +air where it damps your curls than where it doesn't. If +it gets much denser than that, it will begin to rain; and +then you may assert, certainly with safety, that there is a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8" href="#Page_8">[8]</a></span> +shower in one place, and not in another; and not allow the +scientific people to tell you that the rain is everywhere, but +palpable in Tooley Street, and impalpable in Grosvenor +Square.</p> + +<p>That, I say, is broadly and comfortably so on the whole,—and +yet with this kind of qualification and farther condition +in the matter. If you watch the steam coming strongly out +of an engine-funnel,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>—at the top of the funnel it is transparent,—you +can't see it, though it is more densely and intensely +there than anywhere else. Six inches out of the funnel it +becomes snow-white,—you see it, and you see it, observe, +exactly where it is,—it is then a real and proper cloud. +Twenty yards off the funnel it scatters and melts away; a +little of it sprinkles you with rain if you are underneath it, +but the rest disappears; yet it is still there;—the surrounding +air does not absorb it all into space in a moment; there +is a gradually diffusing current of invisible moisture at the +end of the visible stream—an invisible, yet quite substantial, +vapor; but not, according to our definition, a cloud, for a +cloud is vapor <i>visible</i>.</p> + +<p>Then the next bit of the question, of course, is, What +makes the vapor visible, when it is so? Why is the compressed +steam transparent, the loose steam white, the dissolved +steam transparent again?</p> + +<p>The scientific people tell you that the vapor becomes visible, +and chilled, as it expands. Many thanks to them; but +can they show us any reason why particles of water should +be more opaque when they are separated than when they are +close together, or give us any idea of the difference of the +state of a particle of water, which won't <i>sink</i> in the air, +from that of one that won't <i>rise</i> in it?<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>And here I must parenthetically give you a little word of, +I will venture to say, extremely useful, advice about scientific +people in general. Their first business is, of course, to tell +you things that are so, and do happen,—as that, if you warm +water, it will boil; if you cool it, it will freeze; and if you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9" href="#Page_9">[9]</a></span> +put a candle to a cask of gunpowder, it will blow you up. +Their second, and far more important business, is to tell you +what you had best do under the circumstances,—put the +kettle on in time for tea; powder your ice and salt, if you +have a mind for ices; and obviate the chance of explosion +by not making the gunpowder. But if, beyond this safe +and beneficial business, they ever try to <i>explain</i> anything to +you, you may be confident of one of two things,—either that +they know nothing (to speak of) about it, or that they have +only seen one side of it—and not only haven't seen, but +usually have no mind to see, the other. When, for instance, +Professor Tyndall explains the twisted beds of the Jungfrau +to you by intimating that the Matterhorn is growing flat;<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> or +the clouds on the lee side of the Matterhorn by the wind's rubbing +against the windward side of it,<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—you may be pretty +sure the scientific people don't know much (to speak of) yet, +either about rock-beds, or cloud-beds. And even if the explanation, +so to call it, be sound on one side, windward or lee, +you may, as I said, be nearly certain it won't do on the other. +Take the very top and center of scientific interpretation by +the greatest of its masters: Newton explained to you—or at +least was once supposed to have explained—why an apple +fell; but he never thought of explaining the exactly correlative, +but infinitely more difficult question, how the apple got +up there!</p> + +<p>You will not, therefore, so please you, expect me to explain +anything to you,—I have come solely and simply to put +before you a few facts, which you can't see by candlelight, or +in railroad tunnels, but which are making themselves now so +very distinctly felt as well as seen, that you may perhaps +have to roof, if not wall, half London afresh before we are +many years older.</p> + +<p>I go back to my point—the way in which clouds, as a matter +of fact, become visible. I have defined the floating or sky +cloud, and defined the falling, or earth cloud. But there's +a sort of thing between the two, which needs a third definition: +namely, Mist. In the 22d page of his 'Glaciers of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10" href="#Page_10">[10]</a></span> +the Alps,' Professor Tyndall says that "the marvelous blueness +of the sky in the earlier part of the day indicated that +the air was charged, almost to saturation, with transparent +aqueous vapor." Well, in certain weather that is true. You +all know the peculiar clearness which precedes rain,—when +the distant hills are looking nigh. I take it on trust from the +scientific people that there is then a quantity—almost to saturation—of +aqueous vapor in the air, but it is aqueous vapor +in a state which makes the air more transparent than it +would be without it. What state of aqueous molecule is that, +absolutely unreflective<a name="FNanchor_12_13" id="FNanchor_12_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_13" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> of light—perfectly transmissive of +light, and showing at once the color of blue water and blue air +on the distant hills?</p> + +<p>I put the question—and pass round to the other side. +Such a clearness, though a certain forerunner of rain, is not +always its forerunner. Far the contrary. Thick air is a much +more frequent forerunner of rain than clear air. In cool +weather, you will often get the transparent prophecy: but in +hot weather, or in certain not hitherto defined states of atmosphere, +the forerunner of rain is mist. In a general way, +after you have had two or three days of rain, the air and sky +are healthily clear, and the sun bright. If it is hot also, the +next day is a little mistier—the next misty and sultry,—and +the next and the next, getting thicker and thicker—end in +another storm, or period of rain.</p> + +<p>I suppose the thick air, as well as the transparent, is in +both cases saturated with aqueous vapor;—but also in both, +observe, vapor that floats everywhere, as if you mixed mud +with the sea; and it takes no shape anywhere: you may have +it with calm, or with wind, it makes no difference to it. You +have a nasty haze with a bitter east wind, or a nasty haze +with not a leaf stirring, and you may have the clear blue vapor +with a fresh rainy breeze, or the clear blue vapor as still +as the sky above. What difference is there between <i>these</i> +aqueous molecules that are clear, and those that are muddy, +<i>these</i> that must sink or rise, and those that must stay where +they are, <i>these</i> that have form and stature, that are bellied<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11" href="#Page_11">[11]</a></span> +like whales and backed like weasels, and those that have +neither backs nor fronts, nor feet nor faces, but are a mist—and +no more—over two or three thousand square miles?</p> + +<p>I again leave the questions with you, and pass on.</p> + +<p>Hitherto I have spoken of all aqueous vapor as if it were +either transparent or white—visible by becoming opaque +like snow, but not by any accession of color. But even those +of us who are least observant of skies, know that, irrespective +of all supervening colors from the sun, there are white +clouds, brown clouds, gray clouds, and black clouds. Are +these indeed—what they appear to be—entirely distinct monastic +disciplines of cloud: Black Friars, and White Friars, +and Friars of Orders Gray? Or is it only their various nearness +to us, their denseness, and the failing of the light upon +them, that makes some clouds look black<a name="FNanchor_13_15" id="FNanchor_13_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_15" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> and others snowy?</p> + +<p>I can only give you qualified and cautious answer. There +are, by differences in their own character, Dominican clouds, +and there are Franciscan;—there are the Black Hussars of +the Bandiera della Morte, and there are the Scots Grays +whose horses can run upon the rock. But if you ask me, as +I would have you ask me, why argent and why sable, how +baptized in white like a bride or a novice, and how hooded +with blackness like a Judge of the Vehmgericht Tribunal,—I +leave these questions with you, and pass on.</p> + +<p>Admitting degrees of darkness, we have next to ask what +color, from sunshine can the white cloud receive, and what +the black?</p> + +<p>You won't expect me to tell you all that, or even the little +that is accurately known about that, in a quarter of an hour; +yet note these main facts on the matter.</p> + +<p>On any pure white, and practically opaque, cloud, or thing +like a cloud, as an Alp, or Milan Cathedral, you can have cast +by rising or setting sunlight, any tints of amber, orange, or +moderately deep rose—you can't have lemon yellows, or any +kind of green except in negative hue by opposition; and +though by stormlight you may sometimes get the reds cast +very deep, beyond a certain limit you cannot go,—the Alps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12" href="#Page_12">[12]</a></span> +are never vermilion color, nor flamingo color, nor canary +color; nor did you ever see a full scarlet cumulus of thundercloud.</p> + +<p>On opaque white vapor, then, remember, you can get a glow +or a blush of color, never a flame of it.</p> + +<p>But when the cloud is transparent as well as pure, and can +be filled with light through all the body of it, you then can +have by the light reflected<a name="FNanchor_14_16" id="FNanchor_14_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_16" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> from its atoms any force conceivable +by human mind of the entire group of the golden and +ruby colors, from intensely burnished gold color, through a +scarlet for whose brightness there are no words, into any +depth and any hue of Tyrian crimson and Byzantine purple. +These with full blue breathed between them at the zenith, and +green blue nearer the horizon, form the scales and chords of +color possible to the morning and evening sky in pure and +fine weather; the keynote of the opposition being vermilion +against green blue, both of equal tone, and at such a height +and acme of brilliancy that you cannot see the line where +their edges pass into each other.</p> + +<p>No colors that can be fixed in earth can ever represent to +you the luster of these cloudy ones. But the actual tints may +be shown you in a lower key, and to a certain extent their +power and relation to each other.</p> + +<p>I have painted the diagram here shown you with colors +prepared for me lately by Messrs. Newman, which I find +brilliant to the height that pigments can be; and the ready +kindness of Mr. Wilson Barrett enables me to show you their +effect by a white light as pure as that of the day. The diagram +is enlarged from my careful sketch of the sunset of 1st +October, 1868, at Abbeville, which was a beautiful example of +what, in fine weather about to pass into storm, a sunset could +then be, in the districts of Kent and Picardy unaffected by +smoke. In reality, the ruby and vermilion clouds were, by +myriads, more numerous than I have had time to paint: but +the general character of their grouping is well enough expressed. +All the illumined clouds are high in the air, and +nearly motionless; beneath them, electric storm-cloud rises in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13" href="#Page_13">[13]</a></span> +a threatening cumulus on the right, and drifts in dark flakes +across the horizon, casting from its broken masses radiating +shadows on the upper clouds. These shadows are traced, in +the first place by making the misty blue of the open sky more +transparent, and therefore darker; and secondly, by entirely +intercepting the sunbeams on the bars of cloud, which, within +the shadowed spaces, show dark on the blue instead of light.</p> + +<p>But, mind, all that is done by reflected light—and in that +light you never get a <i>green</i> ray from the reflecting cloud; +there is no such thing in nature as a green lighted cloud relieved +from a red sky,—the cloud is always red, and the sky +green, and green, observe, by transmitted, not reflected light.</p> + +<p>But now note, there is another kind of cloud, pure white, +and exquisitely delicate; which acts not by reflecting, nor by +refracting, but, as it is now called, <i>dif</i>fracting, the sun's +rays. The particles of this cloud are said—with what truth +I know not<a name="FNanchor_15_18" id="FNanchor_15_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_18" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>—to send the sunbeams round them instead +of through them; somehow or other, at any rate, they resolve +them into their prismatic elements; and then you have literally +a kaleidoscope in the sky, with every color of the prism +in absolute purity; but above all in force, now, the ruby red +and the <i>green</i>,—with purple, and violet-blue, in a virtual +equality, more definite than that of the rainbow. The red +in the rainbow is mostly brick red, the violet, though beautiful, +often lost at the edge; but in the prismatic cloud the +violet, the green, and the ruby are all more lovely than in any +precious stones, and they are varied as in a bird's breast, +changing their places, depths, and extent at every instant.</p> + +<p>The main cause of this change being, that the prismatic +cloud itself is always in rapid, and generally in fluctuating +motion. "A light veil of clouds had drawn itself," says Professor +Tyndall, in describing his solitary ascent of Monte +Rosa, "between me and the sun, and this was flooded with the +most brilliant dyes. Orange, red, green, blue—all the hues +produced by diffraction—were exhibited in the utmost splendor.</p> + +<p>"Three times during my ascent (the short ascent of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14" href="#Page_14">[14]</a></span> +the last peak) similar veils drew themselves across the sun, +and at each passage the splendid phenomena were renewed. +There seemed a tendency to form circular zones of color +round the sun; but the clouds were not sufficiently uniform +to permit of this, and they were consequently broken into +spaces, each steeped with the color due to the condition of the +cloud at the place."</p> + +<p>Three times, you observe, the veil passed, and three times +another came, or the first faded and another formed; and so +it is always, as far as I have registered prismatic cloud: and +the most beautiful colors I ever saw were on those that flew +fastest.</p> + +<p>This second diagram is enlarged admirably by Mr. Arthur +Severn from my sketch of the sky in the afternoon of the 6th +of August, 1880, at Brantwood, two hours before sunset. +You are looking west by north, straight towards the sun, and +nearly straight towards the wind. From the west the wind +blows fiercely towards you out of the blue sky. Under the +blue space is a flattened dome of earth-cloud clinging to, and +altogether masking the form of, the mountain, known as the +Old Man of Coniston.</p> + +<p>The top of that dome of cloud is two thousand eight hundred +feet above the sea, the mountain two thousand six +hundred, the cloud lying two hundred feet deep on it. Behind +it, westward and seaward, all's clear; but when the wind +out of that blue clearness comes over the ridge of the earth-cloud, +at that moment and that line, its own moisture congeals +into these white—I believe, <i>ice</i>-clouds; threads, and +meshes, and tresses, and tapestries, flying, failing, melting, +reappearing; spinning and unspinning themselves, coiling +and uncoiling, winding and unwinding, faster than eye or +thought can follow: and through all their dazzling maze of +frosty filaments shines a painted window in palpitation; its +pulses of color interwoven in motion, intermittent in fire,—emerald +and ruby and pale purple and violet melting into a +blue that is not of the sky, but of the sunbeam;—purer than +the crystal, softer than the rainbow, and brighter than the +snow.</p> + +<p>But you must please here observe that while my first diagram<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15" href="#Page_15">[15]</a></span> +did with some adequateness represent to you the color +facts there spoken of, the present diagram can only <i>explain</i>, +not reproduce them. The bright reflected colors of clouds +<i>can</i> be represented in painting, because they are relieved +against darker colors, or, in many cases, <i>are</i> dark colors, the +vermilion and ruby clouds being often much darker than the +green or blue sky beyond them. But in the case of the phenomena +now under your attention, the colors are all <i>brighter +than pure white</i>,—the entire body of the cloud in which they +show themselves being white by transmitted light, so that I +can only show you what the colors are, and where they are,—but +leaving them dark on the white ground. Only artificial, +and very high illumination would give the real effect of them,—painting +cannot.</p> + +<p>Enough, however, is here done to fix in your minds the +distinction between those two species of cloud,—one, either +stationary,<a name="FNanchor_16_19" id="FNanchor_16_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_19" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> or slow in motion, <i>reflecting unresolved</i> light; +the other, fast-flying, and <i>transmitting resolved</i> light. What +difference is there in the nature of the atoms, between those +two kinds of clouds? I leave the question with you for to-day, +merely hinting to you my suspicion that the prismatic +cloud is of finely-comminuted water, or ice,<a name="FNanchor_17_20" id="FNanchor_17_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_20" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> instead of aqueous +vapor; but the only clue I have to this idea is in the purity +of the rainbow formed in frost mist, lying close to water +surfaces. Such mist, however, only becomes prismatic as +common rain does, when the sun is behind the spectator, +while prismatic clouds are, on the contrary, always between +the spectator and the sun.</p> + +<p>The main reason, however, why I can tell you nothing yet +about these colors of diffraction or interference, is that, whenever +I try to find anything firm for you to depend on, I am +stopped by the quite frightful inaccuracy of the scientific +people's terms, which is the consequence of their always trying +to write mixed Latin and English, so losing the grace of +the one and the sense of the other. And, in this point of the +diffraction of light I am stopped dead by their confusion of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16" href="#Page_16">[16]</a></span> +idea also, in using the words undulation and vibration as +synonyms. "When," says Professor Tyndall, "you are told +that the atoms of the sun <i>vibrate</i> at different rates, and produce +<i>waves</i> of different sizes,—your experience of water-waves +will enable you to form a tolerably clear notion of what +is meant."</p> + +<p>'Tolerably clear'!—your toleration must be considerable, +then. Do you suppose a water-wave is like a harp-string? +Vibration is the movement of a body in a state of tension,—undulation, +that of a body absolutely lax. In vibration, not +an atom of the body changes its place in relation to another,—in +undulation, not an atom of the body remains in the same +place with regard to another. In vibration, every particle +of the body ignores gravitation, or defies it,—in undulation, +every particle of the body is slavishly submitted to it. In +undulation, not one wave is like another; in vibration, every +pulse is alike. And of undulation itself, there are all manner +of visible conditions, which are not true conditions. A +flag ripples in the wind, but it does not undulate as the sea +does,—for in the sea, the water is taken from the trough to +put on to the ridge, but in the flag, though the motion is progressive, +the bits of bunting keep their place. You see a field +of corn undulating as if it was water,—it is different from +the flag, for the ears of corn bow out of their places and return +to them,—and yet, it is no more like the undulation of +the sea, than the shaking of an aspen leaf in a storm, or the +lowering of the lances in a battle.</p> + +<p>And the best of the jest is, that after mixing up these two +notions in their heads inextricably, the scientific people apply +both when neither will fit; and when all undulation known to +us presumes weight, and all vibration, impact,—the undulating +theory of light is proposed to you concerning a medium +which you can neither weigh nor touch!</p> + +<p>All <i>communicable</i> vibration—of course I mean—and in +dead matter: <i>You</i> may fall a shivering on your own account, +if you like, but you can't get a billiard-ball to fall a shivering +on <i>its</i> own account.<a name="FNanchor_18_22" id="FNanchor_18_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_22" class="fnanchor">[18]</a></p> + +<p>Yet observe that in thus signalizing the inaccuracy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17" href="#Page_17">[17]</a></span> +terms in which they are taught, I neither accept, nor assail, +the conclusions respecting the oscillatory states of light, heat, +and sound, which have resulted from the postulate of an elastic, +though impalpable and imponderable ether, possessing +the elasticity of air. This only I desire you to mark with +attention,—that both light and sound are <i>sensations</i> of the animal +frame, which remain, and must remain, wholly inexplicable, +whatever manner of force, pulse, or palpitation may +be instrumental in producing them: nor does any such force +<i>become</i> light or sound, except in its rencontre with an animal. +The leaf hears no murmur in the wind to which it wavers on +the branches, nor can the clay discern the vibration by which +it is thrilled into a ruby. The Eye and the Ear are the +creators alike of the ray and the tone; and the conclusion +follows logically from the right conception of their living +power,—"He that planted the Ear, shall He not hear? He +that formed the Eye, shall not He see?"</p> + +<p>For security, therefore, and simplicity of definition of +light, you will find no possibility of advancing beyond Plato's +"the power that through the eye manifests color," but on +that definition, you will find, alike by Plato and all great +subsequent thinkers, a <i>moral</i> Science of Light founded, far +and away more important to you than all the physical laws +ever learned by vitreous revelation. Concerning which I +will refer you to the sixth lecture which I gave at Oxford in +1872, on the relation of Art to the Science of Light ('The +Eagle's Nest'), reading now only the sentence introducing its +subject:—"The 'Fiat lux' of creation is therefore, in the +deep sense, 'fiat anima,' and is as much, when you understand +it, the ordering of Intelligence as the ordering of Vision. +It is the appointment of change of what had been else +only a mechanical effluence from things unseen to things unseeing,—from +Stars, that did not shine, to Earth, that did not +perceive,—the change, I say, of that blind vibration into +the glory of the Sun and Moon for human eyes: so making +possible the communication out of the unfathomable truth of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18" href="#Page_18">[18]</a></span> +that portion of truth which is good for us, and animating to +us, and is set to rule over the day and over the night of our +joy and our sorrow."</p> + +<p>Returning now to our subject at the point from which I +permitted myself, I trust not without your pardon, to diverge; +you may incidentally, but carefully, observe, that the +effect of such a sky as that represented in the second diagram, +so far as it can be abstracted or conveyed by painting at all, +implies the total absence of any pervading warmth of tint, +such as artists usually call 'tone.' Every tint must be the +purest possible, and above all the white. Partly, lest you +should think, from my treatment of these two phases of effect, +that I am insensible to the quality of tone,—and partly to +complete the representation of states of weather undefiled by +plague-cloud, yet capable of the most solemn dignity in saddening +color, I show you, Diagram 3, the record of an autumn +twilight of the year 1845,—sketched while I was changing +horses between Verona and Brescia. The distant sky in +this drawing is in the glowing calm which is always taken +by the great Italian painters for the background of their +sacred pictures; a broad field of cloud is advancing upon it +overhead, and meeting others enlarging in the distance; these +are rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, +and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in +them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not +darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; +their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden +shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic +as the fading of the twilight itself into a darkness full +of stars.</p> + +<p>These three instances are all I have time to give of the +former conditions of serene weather, and of non-electric rain-cloud. +But I must yet, to complete the sequence of my subject, +show you one example of a good, old-fashioned, healthy, +and mighty, storm.</p> + +<p>In Diagram 4, Mr. Severn has beautifully enlarged my +sketch of a July thundercloud of the year 1858, on the Alps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19" href="#Page_19">[19]</a></span> +of the Val d'Aosta, seen from Turin, that is to say, some +twenty-five or thirty miles distant. You see that no mistake +is possible here about what is good weather and what +bad, or which is cloud and which is sky; but I show you this +sketch especially to give you the scale of heights for such +clouds in the atmosphere. These thunder cumuli entirely +<i>hide</i> the higher Alps. It does not, however, follow that they +have buried them, for most of their own aspect of height is +owing to the approach of their nearer masses; but at all +events, you have cumulus there rising from its base, at about +three thousand feet above the plain, to a good ten thousand +in the air.</p> + +<p>White cirri, in reality parallel, but by perspective radiating, +catch the sunshine above, at a height of from fifteen to +twenty thousand feet; but the storm on the mountains gathers +itself into a full mile's depth of massy cloud, every fold of +it involved with thunder, but every form of it, every action, +every color, magnificent:—doing its mighty work in its own +hour and its own dominion, nor snatching from you for an +instant, nor defiling with a stain, the abiding blue of the +transcendent sky, or the fretted silver of its passionless +clouds.</p> + +<p>We so rarely now see cumulus cloud of this grand kind, +that I will yet delay you by reading the description of its +nearer aspect, in the 'Eagle's Nest.'</p> + +<p>"The rain which flooded our fields the Sunday before last, +was followed, as you will remember, by bright days, of which +Tuesday the 20th (February, 1872) was, in London, notable +for the splendor, towards the afternoon, of its white cumulus +clouds. There has been so much black east wind lately, and +so much fog and artificial gloom, besides, that I find it is +actually some two years since I last saw a noble cumulus +cloud under full light. I chanced to be standing under the +Victoria Tower at Westminster, when the largest mass of +them floated past, that day, from the northwest; and I was +more impressed than ever yet by the awfulness of the cloud-form, +and its unaccountableness, in the present state of our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20" href="#Page_20">[20]</a></span> +knowledge. The Victoria Tower, seen against it, had no +magnitude: it was like looking at Mont Blanc over a lamp-post. +The domes of cloud-snow were heaped as definitely: +their broken flanks were as gray and firm as rocks, and the +whole mountain, of a compass and height in heaven which +only became more and more inconceivable as the eye strove to +ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady march, +whose swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest: +yet, along all the ravines of vapor, precipice kept pace with +precipice, and not one thrust another.</p> + +<p>"What is it that hews them out? Why is the blue sky +pure there,—the cloud solid here; and edged like marble: and +why does the state of the blue sky pass into the state of cloud, +in that calm advance?</p> + +<p>"It is true that you can more or less imitate the forms of +cloud with explosive vapor or steam; but the steam melts +instantly, and the explosive vapor dissipates itself. The +cloud, of perfect form, proceeds unchanged. It is not an +explosion, but an enduring and advancing presence. The +more you think of it, the less explicable it will become to +you."</p> + +<p>Thus far then of clouds that were once familiar; now at +last, entering on my immediate subject, I shall best introduce +it to you by reading an entry in my diary which gives progressive +description of the most gentle aspect of the modern +plague-cloud.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="quotdate"> +"<i>Bolton Abbey, 4th July, 1875.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Half-past eight, morning; the first bright morning for +the last fortnight.</p> + +<p>At half-past five it was entirely clear, and entirely calm; +the moorlands glowing, and the Wharfe glittering in sacred +light, and even the thin-stemmed field-flowers quiet as stars, +in the peace in which—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'All trees and simples, great and small,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That balmy leaf do bear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than they were painted on a wall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No more do move, nor steir.'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21" href="#Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> +<p>But, an hour ago, the leaves at my window first shook +slightly. They are now trembling <i>continuously</i>, as those of +all the trees, under a gradually rising wind, of which the +tremulous action scarcely permits the direction to be defined,—but +which falls and returns in fits of varying force, like +those which precede a thunderstorm—never wholly ceasing: +the direction of its upper current is shown by a few ragged +white clouds, moving fast from the north, which rose, at the +time of the first leaf-shaking, behind the edge of the moors in +the east.</p> + +<p>This wind is the plague-wind of the eighth decade of years +in the nineteenth century; a period which will assuredly be +recognized in future meteorological history as one of phenomena +hitherto unrecorded in the courses of nature, and characterized +pre-eminently by the almost ceaseless action of this +calamitous wind. While I have been writing these sentences, +the white clouds above specified have increased to twice +the size they had when I began to write; and in about two +hours from this time—say by eleven o'clock, if the wind continue,—the +whole sky will be dark with them, as it was yesterday, +and has been through prolonged periods during the +last five years. I first noticed the definite character of this +wind, and of the clouds it brings with it, in the year 1871, +describing it then in the July number of 'Fors Clavigera'; +but little, at that time, apprehending either its universality, or +any probability of its annual continuance. I am able now to +state positively that its range of power extends from the +North of England to Sicily; and that it blows more or less +during the whole of the year, except the early autumn. This +autumnal abdication is, I hope, beginning: it blew but feebly +yesterday, though without intermission, from the north, making +every shady place cold, while the sun was burning; its +effect on the sky being only to dim the blue of it between +masses of ragged cumulus. To-day it has entirely fallen; +and there seems hope of bright weather, the first for me since +the end of May, when I had two fine days at Aylesbury; the +third, May 28th, being black again from morning to evening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22" href="#Page_22">[22]</a></span> +There seems to be some reference to the blackness caused by +the prevalence of this wind in the old French name of Bise, +'<i>gray</i> wind'; and, indeed, one of the darkest and bitterest +days of it I ever saw was at Vevay in 1872."</p> +</div> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The first time I recognized the clouds brought by the +plague-wind as distinct in character was in walking back +from Oxford, after a hard day's work, to Abingdon, in the +early spring of 1871: it would take too long to give you any +account this evening of the particulars which drew my attention +to them; but during the following months I had too +frequent opportunities of verifying my first thoughts of them, +and on the first of July in that year wrote the description of +them which begins the 'Fors Clavigera' of August, thus:—</p> + +<p>"It is the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismalest +light that ever yet I wrote by; namely, the light of this +midsummer morning, in mid-England, (Matlock, Derbyshire), +in the year 1871.</p> + +<p>"For the sky is covered with gray cloud;—not rain-cloud, +but a dry black veil, which no ray of sunshine can pierce; +partly diffused in mist, feeble mist, enough to make distant +objects unintelligible, yet without any substance, or wreathing, +or color of its own. And everywhere the leaves of the +trees are shaking fitfully, as they do before a thunder-storm; +only not violently, but enough to show the passing to and fro +of a strange, bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, had it +been the first morning of its kind that summer had sent. +But during all this spring, in London, and at Oxford, through +meager March, through changelessly sullen April, through +despondent May, and darkened June, morning after morning +has come gray-shrouded thus.</p> + +<p>"And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I +am fifty years old, and more; and since I was five, have +gleaned the best hours of my life in the sun of spring and +summer mornings; and I never saw such as these, till now.</p> + +<p>"And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the +sun, and the moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23" href="#Page_23">[23]</a></span> +about <i>them</i>, I believe, by this time; and how they move, and +what they are made of.</p> + +<p>"And I do not care, for my part, two copper spangles how +they move, nor what they are made of. I can't move them +any other way than they go, nor make them of anything else, +better than they are made. But I would care much and give +much, if I could be told where this bitter wind comes from, +and what <i>it</i> is made of.</p> + +<p>"For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory +science, one might make it of something else.</p> + +<p>"It looks partly as if it were made of poisonous smoke; +very possibly it may be: there are at least two hundred +furnace chimneys in a square of two miles on every side of +me. But mere smoke would not blow to and fro in that wild +way. It looks more to me as if it were made of dead men's +souls—such of them as are not gone yet where they have to +go, and may be flitting hither and thither, doubting, themselves, +of the fittest place for them.</p> + +<p>"You know, if there <i>are</i> such things as souls, and if ever +any of them haunt places where they have been hurt, there +must be many about us, just now, displeased enough!"</p> + +<p>The last sentence refers of course to the battles of the +Franco-German campaign, which was especially horrible to +me, in its digging, as the Germans should have known, a +moat flooded with waters of death between the two nations for +a century to come.</p> + +<p>Since that Midsummer day, my attention, however otherwise +occupied, has never relaxed in its record of the phenomena +characteristic of the plague-wind; and I now define for +you, as briefly as possible, the essential signs of it.</p> + +<p>1. It is a wind of darkness,—all the former conditions of +tormenting winds, whether from the north or east were more +or less capable of co-existing with sunlight, and often with +steady and bright sunlight; but whenever, and wherever the +plague-wind blows, be it but for ten minutes, the sky is darkened +instantly.</p> + +<p>2. It is a malignant <i>quality</i> of wind, unconnected with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24" href="#Page_24">[24]</a></span> +any one quarter of the compass; it blows indifferently from +all, attaching its own bitterness and malice to the worst characters +of the proper winds of each quarter. It will blow +either with drenching rain, or dry rage, from the south,—with +ruinous blasts from the west,—with bitterest chills +from the north,—and with venomous blight from the east.</p> + +<p>Its own favorite quarter, however, is the southwest, so that +it is distinguished in its malignity equally from the Bise of +Provence, which is a north wind always, and from our own +old friend, the east.</p> + +<p>3. It always blows <i>tremulously</i>, making the leaves of the +trees shudder as if they were all aspens, but with a peculiar +fitfulness which gives them—and I watch them this moment +as I write—an expression of anger as well as of fear and distress. +You may see the kind of quivering, and hear the ominous +whimpering, in the gusts that precede a great thunderstorm; +but plague-wind is more panic-struck, and feverish; +and its sound is a hiss instead of a wail.</p> + +<p>When I was last at Avallon, in South France, I went to see +'Faust' played at the little country theater: it was done with +scarcely any means of pictorial effect, except a few old curtains, +and a blue light or two. But the night on the Brocken +was nevertheless extremely appalling to me,—a strange +ghastliness being obtained in some of the witch scenes merely +by fine management of gesture and drapery; and in the phantom +scenes, by the half-palsied, half-furious, faltering or +fluttering past of phantoms stumbling as into graves; as if of +not only soulless, but senseless, Dead, moving with the very +action, the rage, the decrepitude, and the trembling of the +plague-wind.</p> + +<p>4. Not only tremulous at every moment, it is also <i>intermittent</i> +with a rapidity quite unexampled in former +weather. There are, indeed, days—and weeks, on which it +blows without cessation, and is as inevitable as the Gulf +Stream; but also there are days when it is contending with +healthy weather, and on such days it will remit for half an +hour, and the sun will begin to show itself, and then the wind +will come back and cover the whole sky with clouds in ten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25" href="#Page_25">[25]</a></span> +minutes; and so on, every half-hour, through the whole day; +so that it is often impossible to go on with any kind of drawing +in color, the light being never for two seconds the same +from morning till evening.</p> + +<p>5. It degrades, while it intensifies, ordinary storm; but +before I read you any description of its efforts in this kind, I +must correct an impression which has got abroad through the +papers, that I speak as if the plague-wind blew now always, +and there were no more any natural weather. On the contrary, +the winter of 1878-9 was one of the most healthy and +lovely I ever saw ice in;—Coniston lake shone under the +calm clear frost in one marble field, as strong as the floor of +Milan Cathedral, half a mile across and four miles down; +and the first entries in my diary which I read you shall be +from the 22d to 26th June, 1876, of perfectly lovely and +natural weather.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +"<i>Sunday, 25th June, 1876.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yesterday, an entirely glorious sunset, unmatched in +beauty since that at Abbeville,—deep scarlet, and purest +rose, on purple gray, in bars; and stationary, plumy, sweeping +filaments above in upper sky, like '<i>using up the brush</i>,' +said Joanie; remaining in glory, every moment best, changing +from one good into another, (but only in color or light—<i>form +steady</i>,) for half an hour full, and the clouds afterwards +fading into the gray against amber twilight, <i>stationary in the +same form for about two hours</i>, at least. The darkening +rose tint remained till half-past ten, the grand time being at +nine.</p> + +<p>The day had been fine,—exquisite green light on afternoon +hills.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>Monday, 26th June, 1876.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yesterday an entirely perfect summer light on the Old +Man; Lancaster Bay all clear; Ingleborough and the great +Pennine fault as on a map. Divine beauty of western color +on thyme and rose,—then twilight of clearest <i>warm</i> amber<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26" href="#Page_26">[26]</a></span> +far into night, of <i>pale</i> amber all night long; hills dark-clear +against it.</p> + +<p>And so it continued, only growing more intense in blue +and sunlight, all day. After breakfast, I came in from the +well under strawberry bed, to say I had never seen anything +like it, so pure or intense, in Italy; and so it went glowing +on, cloudless, with soft north wind, all day.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>16th July.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>The sunset almost too bright <i>through the blinds</i> for me +to read Humboldt at tea by,—finally, new moon like a lime-light, +reflected on breeze-struck water; traces, across dark +calm, of reflected hills."</p></div> + +<p>These extracts are, I hope, enough to guard you against the +absurdity of supposing that it all only means that I am myself +soured, or doting, in my old age, and always in an ill +humor. Depend upon it, when old men are worth anything, +they are better humored than young ones; and have learned +to see what good there is, and pleasantness, in the world they +are likely so soon to have orders to quit.</p> + +<p>Now then—take the following sequences of accurate description +of thunderstorm, <i>with</i> plague-wind.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>"22d June, 1876.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Thunderstorm; pitch dark, with no <i>blackness</i>,—but deep, +high, <i>filthiness</i> of lurid, yet not sublimely lurid, smoke-cloud; +dense manufacturing mist; fearful squalls of shivery +wind, making Mr. Severn's sail quiver like a man in a fever +fit—all about four, afternoon—but only two or three claps of +thunder, and feeble, though near, flashes. I never saw such +a dirty, weak, foul storm. It cleared suddenly, after raining +all afternoon, at half-past eight to nine, into pure, natural +weather,—low rain-clouds on quite clear, green, wet hills.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>Brantwood, 13th August, 1879.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>The most terrific and horrible thunderstorm, this morning, +I ever remember. It waked me at six, or a little before—then +rolling incessantly, like railway luggage trains, quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27" href="#Page_27">[27]</a></span> +ghastly in its mockery of them—the air one loathsome mass +of sultry and foul fog, like smoke; scarcely raining at all, but +increasing to heavier rollings, with flashes quivering vaguely +through all the air, and at last terrific double streams of reddish-violet +fire, not forked or zigzag, but rippled rivulets—two +at the same instant some twenty to thirty degrees apart, +and lasting on the eye at least half a second, with grand artillery-peals +following; not rattling crashes, or irregular +cracklings, but delivered volleys. It lasted an hour, then +passed off, clearing a little, without rain to speak of,—not a +glimpse of blue,—and now, half-past seven, seems settling +down again into Manchester devil's darkness.</p> + +<p>Quarter to eight, morning.—Thunder returned, all the air +collapsed into one black fog, the hills invisible, and scarcely +visible the opposite shore; heavy rain in short fits, and frequent, +though less formidable, flashes, and shorter thunder. +While I have written this sentence the cloud has again dissolved +itself, like a nasty solution in a bottle, with miraculous +and unnatural rapidity, and the hills are in sight again; +a double-forked flash—rippled, I mean, like the others—starts +into its frightful ladder of light between me and +Wetherlam, as I raise my eyes. All black above, a rugged +spray cloud on the Eaglet. (The 'Eaglet' is my own name +for the bold and elevated crag to the west of the little lake +above Coniston mines. It had no name among the country +people, and is one of the most conspicuous features of the +mountain chain, as seen from Brantwood.)</p> + +<p>Half-past eight.—Three times light and three times dark +since last I wrote, and the darkness seeming each time as it +settles more loathsome, at last stopping my reading in mere +blindness. One lurid gleam of white cumulus in upper +lead-blue sky, seen for half a minute through the sulphurous +chimney-pot vomit of blackguardly cloud beneath, where its +rags were thinnest.</p> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>Thursday, 22d Feb. 1883.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Yesterday a fearfully dark mist all afternoon, with steady, +south plague-wind of the bitterest, nastiest, poisonous blight, +and fretful flutter. I could scarcely stay in the wood for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28" href="#Page_28">[28]</a></span> +the horror of it. To-day, really rather bright blue, and +bright semi-cumuli, with the frantic Old Man blowing +sheaves of lancets and chisels across the lake—not in strength +enough, or whirl enough, to raise it in spray, but tracing +every squall's outline in black on the silver gray waves, and +whistling meanly, and as if on a flute made of a file.</p></div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +<i>Sunday, 17th August, 1879.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p>Raining in foul drizzle, slow and steady; sky pitch-dark, +and I just get a little light by sitting in the bow-window; +diabolic clouds over everything: and looking over my kitchen +garden yesterday, I found it one miserable mass of weeds +gone to seed, the roses in the higher garden putrefied into +brown sponges, feeling like dead snails; and the half-ripe +strawberries all rotten at the stalks."</p></div> + +<p>6. And now I come to the most important sign of the +plague-wind and the plague-cloud: that in bringing on their +peculiar darkness, they <i>blanch</i> the sun instead of reddening +it. And here I must note briefly to you the uselessness of +observation by instruments, or machines, instead of eyes. In +the first year when I had begun to notice the specialty of the +plague-wind, I went of course to the Oxford observatory to +consult its registrars. They have their anemometer always +on the twirl, and can tell you the force, or at least the pace, of +a gale,<a name="FNanchor_19_23" id="FNanchor_19_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_23" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> by day or night. But the anemometer can only +record for you how often it has been driven round, not at all +whether it went round <i>steadily</i>, or went round <i>trembling</i>. +And on that point depends the entire question whether it is a +plague breeze or a healthy one: and what's the use of telling +you whether the wind's strong or not, when it can't tell you +whether it's a strong medicine, or a strong poison?</p> + +<p>But again—you have your <i>sun</i>-measure, and can tell exactly +at any moment how strong, or how weak, or how wanting, +the sun is. But the sun-measurer can't tell you whether +the rays are stopped by a dense <i>shallow</i> cloud, or a thin <i>deep</i> +one. In healthy weather, the sun is hidden behind a cloud, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29" href="#Page_29">[29]</a></span> +it is behind a tree; and, when the cloud is past, it comes out +again, as bright as before. But in plague-wind, the sun is +choked out of the whole heaven, all day long, by a cloud which +may be a thousand miles square and five miles deep.</p> + +<p>And yet observe: that thin, scraggy, filthy, mangy, miserable +cloud, for all the depth of it, can't turn the sun red, as a +good, business-like fog does with a hundred feet or so of +itself. By the plague-wind every breath of air you draw is +polluted, half round the world; in a London fog the air +itself is pure, though you choose to mix up dirt with it, and +choke yourself with your own nastiness.</p> + +<p>Now I'm going to show you a diagram of a sunset in +entirely pure weather, above London smoke. I saw it and +sketched it from my old post of observation—the top garret of +my father's house at Herne Hill. There, when the wind is +south, we are outside of the smoke and above it; and this +diagram, admirably enlarged from my own drawing by my, +now in all things best aide-de-camp, Mr. Collingwood, shows +you an old-fashioned sunset—the sort of thing Turner and +I used to have to look at,—(nobody else ever would) constantly. +Every sunset and every dawn, in fine weather, +had something of the sort to show us. This is one of the +last pure sunsets I ever saw, about the year 1876,—and the +point I want you to note in it is, that the air being pure, +the smoke on the horizon, though at last it hides the sun, yet +hides it through gold and vermilion. Now, don't go away +fancying there's any exaggeration in that study. The <i>prismatic</i> +colors, I told you, were simply impossible to paint; +these, which are transmitted colors, can indeed be suggested, +but no more. The brightest pigment we have would look dim +beside the truth.</p> + +<p>I should have liked to have blotted down for you a bit of +plague-cloud to put beside this; but Heaven knows, you can +see enough of it now-a-days without any trouble of mine; and +if you want, in a hurry, to see what the sun looks like +through it, you've only to throw a bad half-crown into a basin +of soap and water.</p> + +<p>Blanched Sun,—blighted grass,—blinded man.—If, in conclusion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30" href="#Page_30">[30]</a></span> +you ask me for any conceivable cause or meaning of +these things—I can tell you none, according to your modern +beliefs; but I can tell you what meaning it would have borne +to the men of old time. Remember, for the last twenty years, +England, and all foreign nations, either tempting her, or following +her, have blasphemed<a name="FNanchor_20_27" id="FNanchor_20_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_27" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> the name of God deliberately +and openly; and have done iniquity by proclamation, every +man doing as much injustice to his brother as it is in his +power to do. Of states in such moral gloom every seer of +old predicted the physical gloom, saying, "The light shall +be darkened in the heavens thereof, and the stars shall withdraw +their shining." All Greek, all Christian, all Jewish +prophecy insists on the same truth through a thousand myths; +but of all the chief, to former thought, was the fable of the +Jewish warrior and prophet, for whom the sun hasted not to +go down, with which I leave you to compare at leisure the +physical result of your own wars and prophecies, as declared +by your own elect journal not fourteen days ago,—that the +Empire of England, on which formerly the sun never set, +has become one on which he never rises.</p> + +<p>What is best to be done, do you ask me? The answer is +plain. Whether you can affect the signs of the sky or not, +you <i>can</i> the signs of the times. Whether you can bring the +<i>sun</i> back or not, you can assuredly bring back your own cheerfulness, +and your own honesty. You may not be able to say +to the winds, "Peace; be still," but you can cease from the +insolence of your own lips, and the troubling of your own +passions. And all <i>that</i> it would be extremely well to do, +even though the day <i>were</i> coming when the sun should be as +darkness, and the moon as blood. But, the paths of rectitude +and piety once regained, who shall say that the promise of +old time would not be found to hold for us also?—"Bring +ye all the tithes into my storehouse, and prove me now herewith, +saith the Lord God, if I will not open you the windows +of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not +be room enough to receive it."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31" href="#Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> +<h2>LECTURE II.</h2> + +<p class="quotdate"> +<i>March 11th, 1884.</i><br /> +</p> + + +<p>It was impossible for me, this spring, to prepare, as I +wished to have done, two lectures for the London Institution: +but finding its members more interested in the subject chosen +than I had anticipated, I enlarged my lecture at its second +reading by some explanations and parentheses, partly represented, +and partly farther developed, in the following notes; +which led me on, however, as I arranged them, into branches +of the subject untouched in the former lecture, and it seems +to me of no inferior interest.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p> +<a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The vapor over the pool of Anger in the 'Inferno,' the +clogging stench which rises from Caina, and the fog of the +circle of Anger in the 'Purgatorio' resemble, indeed, the +cloud of the Plague-wind very closely,—but are conceived +only as supernatural. The reader will no doubt observe, +throughout the following lecture, my own habit of speaking of +beautiful things as 'natural,' and of ugly ones as 'unnatural.' +In the conception of recent philosophy, the world is one Kosmos +in which diphtheria is held to be as natural as song, +and cholera as digestion. To my own mind, and the more +distinctly the more I see, know, and feel, the Earth, as prepared +for the abode of man, appears distinctly ruled by +agencies of health and disease, of which the first may be +aided by his industry, prudence, and piety; while the destroying +laws are allowed to prevail against him, in the degree in +which he allows himself in idleness, folly, and vice. Had +the point been distinctly indicated where the degrees of adversity +necessary for his discipline pass into those intended +for his punishment, the world would have been put under a +manifest theocracy; but the declaration of the principle is at +least distinct enough to have convinced all sensitive and +earnest persons, from the beginning of speculation in the eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32" href="#Page_32">[32]</a></span> +and mind of Man: and it has been put in my power by one +of the singular chances which have always helped me in my +work when it was in the right direction, to present to the +University of Oxford the most distinct expression of this +first principle of mediæval Theology which, so far as I know, +exists in fifteenth-century art. It is one of the drawings of +the Florentine book which I bought for a thousand pounds, +against the British Museum, some ten or twelve years since; +being a compendium of classic and mediæval religious symbolism. +In the two pages of it, forming one picture, given to +Oxford, the delivery of the Law on Sinai is represented on +the left hand, (<i>contrary to the Scriptural narrative</i>, but in +deeper expression of the benediction of the Sacred Law to all +nations,) as in the midst of bright and calm light, the figure +of the Deity being supported by luminous and level clouds, +and attended by happy angels: while opposite, on the right +hand, the worship of the Golden Calf is symbolized by a +single decorated pillar, with the calf on its summit, surrounded +by the clouds and darkness of a furious storm, issuing +from the mouths of fiends;—uprooting the trees, and +throwing down the rocks, above the broken tables of the Law, +of which the fragments lie in the foreground.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> These conditions are mainly in the arrangement of the +lower rain-clouds in flakes thin and detached enough to be +illuminated by early or late sunbeams: their textures are +then more softly blended than those of the upper cirri, and +have the qualities of painted, instead of burnished or inflamed, +color. +</p><p> +They were thus described in the 4th chapter of the 7th +part of 'Modern Painters':— +</p><p> +"Often in our English mornings, the rain-clouds in the +dawn form soft level fields, which melt imperceptibly into +the blue; or when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, +crossing the sheets of broader cloud above; and all these +bathed throughout in an unspeakable light of pure rose-color, +and purple, and amber, and blue, not shining, but misty-soft, +the barred masses, when seen nearer, found to be woven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33" href="#Page_33">[33]</a></span> +in tresses of cloud, like floss silk, looking as if each knot +were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted rain. +</p><p> +"No clouds form such skies, none are so tender, various, +inimitable; Turner himself never caught them. Correggio, +putting out his whole strength, could have painted them,—no +other man."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> I did not, in writing this sentence, forget Mr. Gladstone's +finely scholastic enthusiasm for Homer; nor Mr. +Newton's for Athenian—(I wish it had not been also for +Halicarnassian) sculpture. But Byron loved Greece herself—through +her death—and <i>to</i> his own; while the subsequent +refusal of England to give Greece one of our own princes for +a king, has always been held by me the most ignoble, +cowardly, and lamentable, of all our base commercial <i>im</i>policies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Deepening' clouds.—Byron never uses an epithet +vainly,—he is the most accurate, and therefore the most +powerful, of all modern describers. The deepening of the +cloud is essentially necessary to the redness of the orb. +Ordinary observers are continually unaware of this fact, +and imagine that a red sun can be darker than the sky +round it! Thus Mr. Gould, though a professed naturalist, +and passing most of his life in the open air, over and over +again, in his 'British Birds,' draws the setting sun dark on +the sky!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 'Like the blood he predicts.'—The astrological power of +the planet Mars was of course ascribed to it in the same connection +with its red color. The reader may be interested to +see the notice, in 'Modern Painters,' of Turner's constant +use of the same symbol; partly an expression of his own +personal feeling, partly, the employment of a symbolic language +known to all careful readers of solar and stellar +tradition. +</p><p> +"He was very definitely in the habit of indicating the +association of any subject with circumstances of death, +especially the death of multitudes, by placing it under one +of his most deeply <i>crimsoned</i> sunset skies. +</p><p> +"The color of blood is thus plainly taken for the leading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34" href="#Page_34">[34]</a></span> +tone in the storm-clouds above the 'Slave-ship.' It occurs +with similar distinctness in the much earlier picture of +'Ulysses and Polypheme,' in that of 'Napoleon at St. +Helena,' and, subdued by softer hues, in the 'Old Téméraire.' +</p><p> +"The sky of this Goldau is, in its scarlet and crimson, the +deepest in tone of all that I know in Turner's drawings. +</p><p> +"Another feeling, traceable in several of his former works, +is an acute sense of the contrast between the careless interests +and idle pleasures of daily life, and the state of those whose +time for labor, or knowledge, or delight, is passed forever. +There is evidence of this feeling in the introduction of the +boys at play in the churchyard of Kirkby Lonsdale, and the +boy climbing for his kite among the thickets above the little +mountain churchyard of Brignal-bank; it is in the same tone +of thought that he has placed here the two figures fishing, +leaning against these shattered flanks of rock,—the sepulchral +stones of the great mountain Field of Death."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> 'Thy lore unto calamity.'—It is, I believe, recognized +by all who have in any degree become interested in the +traditions of Chaldean astrology, that its warnings were distinct,—its +promises deceitful. Horace thus warns Leuconoe +against reading the Babylonian numbers to learn the time of +her death,—he does not imply their promise of previous +happiness; and the continually deceptive character of the +Delphic oracle itself, tempted always rather to fatal than to +fortunate conduct, unless the inquirer were more than wise in +his reading. Byron gathers into the bitter question all the +sorrow of former superstition, while in the lines italicized, +just above, he sums in the briefest and plainest English, all +that we yet know, or may wisely think, about the Sun. It is +the '<i>Burning</i> oracle' (other oracles there are by sound, or +feeling, but this by fire) of all that lives; the only means of +our accurate knowledge of the things round us, and that +affect our lives: it is the <i>fountain</i> of all life,—Byron does +not say the <i>origin</i>;—the origin of life would be the origin of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35" href="#Page_35">[35]</a></span> +the sun itself; but it is the visible <i>source</i> of vital energy, as +the spring is of a stream, though the origin is the sea. "And +symbol of Him who bestows it."—This the sun has always +been, to every one who believes there is a bestower; and a +symbol so perfect and beautiful that it may also be thought +of as partly an apocalypse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> 'More beautiful in that variety.'—This line, with the +one italicized beneath, expresses in Myrrha's mind, the feeling +which I said, in the outset, every thoughtful watcher of +heaven necessarily had in those old days; whereas now, the +variety is for the most part, only in modes of disagreeableness; +and the vapor, instead of adding light to the unclouded +sky, takes away the aspect and destroys the functions of sky +altogether.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> 'Steam out of an engine funnel.'—Compare the sixth +paragraph of Professor Tyndall's 'Forms of Water,' and the +following seventh one, in which the phenomenon of transparent +steam becoming opaque is thus explained. "Every +bit of steam shrinks, when chilled, to a much more minute +particle of water. The liquid particles thus produced form +a kind of water dust of exceeding fineness, which floats in +the air, and is called a cloud." +</p><p> +But the author does not tell us, in the first place, what is +the shape or nature of a 'bit of steam,' nor, in the second +place, how the contraction of the individual bits of steam is +effected without any diminution of the whole mass of them, +but on the contrary, during its steady <i>expansion</i>; in the +third place he assumes that the particles of water dust are +solid, not vesicular, which is not yet ascertained; in the +fourth place, he does not tell us how their number and size +are related to the quantity of invisible moisture in the air; in +the fifth place, he does not tell us how cool invisible moisture +differs from hot invisible moisture; and in the sixth, he does +not tell us why the cool visible moisture stays while the hot +visible moisture melts away. So much for the present state +of 'scientific' information, or at least communicativeness, on +the first and simplest conditions of the problem before us! +</p><p> +In its wider range that problem embraces the total mystery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36" href="#Page_36">[36]</a></span> +of volatile power in substance; and of the visible states consequent +on sudden—and presumably, therefore, imperfect—vaporization; +as the smoke of frankincense, or the sacred +fume of modern devotion which now fills the inhabited +world, as that of the rose and violet its deserts. What,—it +would be useful to know, is the actual bulk of an atom of +orange perfume?—what of one of vaporized tobacco, or gunpowder?—and +where do <i>these</i> artificial vapors fall back in +beneficent rain? or through what areas of atmosphere exist, +as invisible, though perhaps not innocuous, cloud? +</p><p> +All these questions were put, closely and precisely, four-and-twenty +years ago, in the 1st chapter of the 7th part of +'Modern Painters,' paragraphs 4 to 9, of which I can here +allow space only for the last, which expresses the final difficulties +of the matter better than anything said in this lecture:— +</p><p> +"But farther: these questions of volatility, and visibility, +and hue, are all complicated with those of shape. How is a +cloud outlined? Granted whatever you choose to ask, concerning +its material, or its aspect, its loftiness and luminousness,—how +of its limitation? What hews it into a heap, +or spins it into a web? Cold is usually shapeless, I suppose, +extending over large spaces equally, or with gradual diminution. +You cannot have in the open air, angles, and +wedges, and coils, and cliffs, of cold. Yet the vapor stops +suddenly, sharp and steep as a rock, or thrusts itself across the +gates of heaven in likeness of a brazen bar; or braids itself +in and out, and across and across, like a tissue of tapestry; +or falls into ripples, like sand; or into waving shreds and +tongues, as fire. On what anvils and wheels is the vapor +pointed, twisted, hammered, whirled, as the potter's clay? +By what hands is the incense of the sea built up into domes +of marble?"</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The opposed conditions of the higher and lower orders +of cloud, with the balanced intermediate one, are beautifully +seen on mountain summits of rock or earth. On snowy ones<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37" href="#Page_37">[37]</a></span> +they are far more complex: but on rock summits there are +three distinct forms of attached cloud in serene weather; the +first that of cloud veil laid over them, and <i>falling</i> in folds +through their ravines, (the obliquely descending clouds of +the entering chorus in Aristophanes); secondly, the ascending +cloud, which develops itself loosely and independently +as it rises, and does not attach itself to the hill-side, while the +falling veil cloud clings to it close all the way down;—and +lastly the throned cloud, which rests indeed on the mountain +summit, with its base, but rises high above into the sky, continually +changing its outlines, but holding its seat perhaps +all day long. +</p><p> +These three forms of cloud belong exclusively to calm +weather; attached drift cloud, (see <a href="#FNanchor_11_11">Note 11</a>) can only be +formed in the wind.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'Glaciers of the Alps,' page 10.—"Let a pound +weight be placed upon a cube of granite" (size of supposed +cube not mentioned), "the cube is flattened, though in an +infinitesimal degree. Let the weight be removed, the cube +remains a little flattened. Let us call the cube thus flattened +No. 1. Starting with No. 1 as a new mass, let the pound +weight be laid upon it. We have a more flattened mass, No. 2.... +Apply this to squeezed rocks, to those, for example, +which form the base of an obelisk like the Matterhorn,—the +conclusion seems inevitable <i>that the mountain is sinking by +its own weight</i>," etc., etc. Similarly the Nelson statue must +be gradually flattening the Nelson column, and in time +Cleopatra's needle will be as flat as her pincushion?</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> 'Glaciers of the Alps,' page 146.—"The sun was near +the western horizon, and I remained alone upon the Grat to +see his last beams illuminate the mountains, which, with one +exception, were without a trace of cloud. +</p><p> +"This exception was the Matterhorn, the appearance of +which was extremely instructive. The obelisk appeared to +be divided in two halves by a vertical line, drawn from its +summit half-way down, to the windward of which we had the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38" href="#Page_38">[38]</a></span> +bare cliffs of the mountain; and to the left of it a cloud which +appeared to cling tenaciously to the rocks. +</p><p> +"In reality, however, there was no clinging; the condensed +vapor incessantly got away, but it was ever renewed, and +thus a river of cloud had been sent from the mountain over +the valley of Aosta. The wind, in fact, blew lightly up the +valley of St. Nicholas, charged with moisture, and when the +air that held it <i>rubbed against the cold cone</i> of the Matterhorn, +the vapor was chilled and precipitated in his lee." +</p><p> +It is not explained, why the wind was not chilled by rubbing +against any of the neighboring mountains, nor why the +cone of the Matterhorn, mostly of rock, should be colder +than cones of snow. The phenomenon was first described +by De Saussure, who gives the same explanation as Tyndall; +and from whom, in the first volume of 'Modern Painters,' I +adopted it without sufficient examination. Afterwards I +re-examined it, and showed its fallacy, with respect to the cap +or helmet cloud, in the fifth volume of 'Modern Painters,' +page 124, in the terms given in the subjoined note,<a name="FNanchor_A_12" id="FNanchor_A_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_12" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> but I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39" href="#Page_39">[39]</a></span>still retained the explanation of Saussure for the lee-side +cloud, engraving in plate 69 the modes of its occurrence on +the Aiguille Dru, of which the most ordinary one was afterwards +represented by Tyndall in his 'Glaciers of the Alps,' +under the title of 'Banner-cloud.' Its less imaginative +title, in 'Modern Painters,' of 'Lee-side cloud,' is more comprehensive, +for this cloud forms often under the brows of +far-terraced precipices, where it has no resemblance to a banner. +No true explanation of it has ever yet been given; for +the first condition of the problem has hitherto been unobserved,—namely, +that such cloud is constant in certain states +of weather, under precipitous rocks;—but never developed +with distinctness by domes of snow. +</p> +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/19th-illus.jpg" width="468" height="260" alt="Wind flow diagram" title="Wind flow diagram" /> +</p> +<p> +But my former expansion of Saussure's theory is at least +closer to the facts than Professor Tyndall's "rubbing against +the rocks," and I therefore allow room for it here, with its +illustrative wood-cut. +</p><p> +"When a moist wind blows in clear weather over a cold +summit, it has not time to get chilled as it approaches the +rock, and therefore the air remains clear, and the sky bright +on the windward side; but under the lee of the peak, there is +partly a back eddy, and partly still air; and in that lull and +eddy the wind gets time to be chilled by the rock, and the +cloud appears, as a boiling mass of white vapor, rising continually +with the return current to the upper edge of the +mountain, where it is caught by the straight wind and +partly torn, partly melted away in broken fragments. +</p><p> +"In the accompanying figure, the dark mass represents the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40" href="#Page_40">[40]</a></span> +mountain peak, the arrow the main direction of the wind, +the curved lines show the directions of such current and its +concentration, and the dotted line encloses the space in which +cloud forms densely, floating away beyond and above in +irregular tongues and flakes." +</p></div> +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_A_12" id="Footnote_A_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_12"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> "But both Saussure and I ought to have known,—we did know, but +did not think of it,—that the covering or cap-cloud forms on hot summits +as well as cold ones;—that the red and bare rocks of Mont Pilate, hotter, +certainly, after a day's sunshine than the cold storm-wind which sweeps +to them from the Alps, nevertheless have been renowned for their helmet +of cloud, ever since the Romans watched the cloven summit, gray against +the south, from the ramparts of Vindonissa, giving it the name from +which the good Catholics of Lucerne have warped out their favorite piece +of terrific sacred biography. And both my master and I should also have +reflected that if our theory about its formation had been generally true, +the helmet cloud ought to form on every cold summit, at the approach of +rain, in approximating proportions to the bulk of the glaciers; which is +so far from being the case that not only (<span class="smcap">A</span>) the cap-cloud may often be +seen on lower summits of grass or rock, while the higher ones are splendidly +clear (which may be accounted for by supposing the wind containing +the moisture not to have risen so high); but (<span class="smcap">B</span>) the cap-cloud +always shows a preference for hills of a conical form, such as the Mole or +Niesen, which can have very little power in chilling the air, even supposing +they were cold themselves; while it will entirely refuse to form +huge masses of mountain, which, supposing them of chilly temperament, +must have discomforted the atmosphere in their neighborhood for leagues." +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_13" id="Footnote_12_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_13"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> See below, on the different uses of the word 'reflection,' +<a href="#FNanchor_14_16">note 14</a>, and note that throughout this lecture I use +the words 'aqueous molecules,' alike of water liquid or +vaporized, not knowing under what conditions or at what +temperatures water-dust becomes water-gas; and still less, +supposing pure water-gas blue, and pure air blue, what are +the changes in either which make them what sailors call +"dirty "; but it is one of the worst omissions of the previous +lecture, that I have not stated among the characters of the +plague-cloud that it is <i>always</i> dirty,<a name="FNanchor_A_14" id="FNanchor_A_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_14" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> and <i>never blue under +any conditions</i>, neither when deep in the distance, nor when +in the electric states which produce sulphurous blues in +natural cloud. But see the next note. +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_A_14" id="Footnote_A_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_14"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> In my final collation of the lectures given at Oxford last year on the +Art of England, I shall have occasion to take notice of the effect of this +character of plague-cloud on our younger painters, who have perhaps +never in their lives seen a <i>clean</i> sky!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_15" id="Footnote_13_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_15"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Black clouds.—For the sudden and extreme local +blackness of thundercloud, see Turner's drawing of Winchelsea, +(England series), and compare Homer, of the Ajaces, in +the 4th book of the Iliad,—(I came on the passage in verifying +Mr. Hill's quotation from the 5th.) +</p> +<p></p> + +<p style="margin-left: 3em;"> +<span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">"ἅμα δὲ νέφος εἴπετο πεζῶν.<br /> +Ὡς δ' ὅτ' ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς εἶδεν νέφος ἀιπόλος ἀνὴρ<br /> +Ἐρχόμενον κατὰ πόντον ὑπὸ Ζεφύροιο ἰωῆς,<br /> +Τῶ δέ τ', ἄνευθεν ἔοντι, μελάντερον, ἠύτε πίσσα<br /> +Φαίνετ', ἰὸν κατὰ πόντον, ἄγει δέ τε λάιλαπα πολλήν‧<br /> +Ῥιγησέν τε ἰδὼν, ὑπό τε σπέος ἤλασε μῆλα‧<br /> +Τοῖαι ἅμ Αἰάντεσσιν ἀρηϊθόων αἰζηῶν<br /> +Δήϊον <ins title="Transcriber's Note:typo for ἐς">ἐσ</ins> πόλεμον πυκιναὶ κίνυντο φάλαγγες<br /> +Κυάνεαι,"<br /> +</span></p> + +<p> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41" href="#Page_41">[41]</a></span>I give Chapman's version—noting only that his <i>breath</i> +of Zephyrus, ought to have been 'cry' or 'roar' of Zephyrus, +the blackness of the cloud being as much connected with the +wildness of the wind as, in the formerly quoted passage, its +brightness with calm of air. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i10">"Behind them hid the ground<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A cloud of foot, that seemed to smoke. And as a Goatherd spies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On some hill top, out of the sea a rainy vapor rise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Driven by the breath of Zephyrus, which though far off he rests,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Comes on as black as pitch, and brings a tempest in his breast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whereat he, frighted, drives his herds apace into a den;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So, darkening earth, with swords and shields, showed these with all their men."<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +<p> +I add here Chapman's version of the other passage, which +is extremely beautiful and close to the text, while Pope's is +hopelessly erroneous. +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i10">"Their ground they still made good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in their silence and set powers, like fair still clouds they stood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With which Jove crowns the tops of hills in any quiet day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Boreas, and the ruder winds that use to drive away<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Air's <i>dusky vapors</i>, being <i>loose</i>, in many a whistling gale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are pleasingly bound up and calm, and not a breath exhale."<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_16" id="Footnote_14_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_16"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'Reflected.'—The reader must be warned in this place +of the difference implied by my use of the word 'cast' in +<a href="#Page_11">page 11</a>, and 'reflected' here: that is to say, between light or +color which an object possesses, whatever the angle it is seen +at, and the light which it reverberates at one angle only. +The Alps, under the rose<a name="FNanchor_A_17" id="FNanchor_A_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_17" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> of sunset, are exactly of the same +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42" href="#Page_42">[42]</a></span>color whether you see them from Berne or Schaffhausen. +But the gilding to our eyes of a burnished cloud depends, I +believe, at least for a measure of its luster, upon the angle +at which the rays incident upon it are reflected to the eye, +just as much as the glittering of the sea beneath it—or the +sparkling of the windows of the houses on the shore. +</p><p> +Previously, at <a href="#Page_10">page 10</a>, in calling the molecules of transparent +atmospheric 'absolutely' unreflective of light, I mean, +in like manner, unreflective from their <i>surfaces</i>. Their blue +color seen against a dark ground is indeed a kind of reflection, +but one of which I do not understand the nature. It is seen +most simply in wood smoke, blue against trees, brown against +clear light; but in both cases the color is communicated to +(or left in) the <i>transmitted</i> rays. +</p><p> +So also the green of the sky (<a href="#Page_13">p. 13</a>) is said to be given by +transmitted light, yellow rays passing through blue air: much +yet remains to be known respecting translucent colors of this +kind; only let them always be clearly distinguished in our +minds from the firmly possessed color of opaque substances, +like grass or malachite. +</p></div> +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_A_17" id="Footnote_A_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_17"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> In speaking, at <a href="#Page_11">p. 11</a> of the first lecture, of the limits of depth in the +rose-color cast on snow, I ought to have noted the greater strength of the +tint possible under the light of the tropics. The following passage, in +Mr. Cunningham's 'Natural History of the Strait of Magellan,' is to me +of the greatest interest, because of the beautiful effect described as seen +on the occasion of his visit to "the small town of Santa Rosa," (near +Valparaiso.) "The day, though clear, had not been sunny, so that, +although the snowy heights of the Andes had been distinctly visible +throughout the greater part of our journey, they had not been illuminated +by the rays of the sun. But now, as we turned the corner of a street, the +chain of the Cordillera suddenly burst on our gaze in such a blaze of +splendor that it almost seemed as if the windows of heaven had been +opened for a moment, permitting a flood of <i>crimson</i> light to stream forth +upon the snow. The sight was so unexpected, and so transcendently +magnificent, that a breathless silence fell upon us for a few moments, +while even the driver stopped his horses. This deep red glow lasted for +three or four minutes, and then rapidly faded into that lovely rosy hue so +characteristic of snow at sunset among the Alps." +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_18" id="Footnote_15_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_18"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Diffraction.—Since these passages were written, I +have been led, in conversation with a scientific friend, to +doubt my statement that the colored portions of the lighted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43" href="#Page_43">[43]</a></span> +clouds were brighter than the white ones. He was convinced +that the resolution of the rays would diminish their power, +and in <i>thinking</i> over the matter, I am disposed to agree with +him, although my impression at the time has been always +that the diffracted colors rose out of the white, as a rainbow +does out of the gray. But whatever the facts may be, in this +respect the statement in the text of the impossibility of +representing diffracted color in painting is equally true. It +may be that the resolved hues are darker than the white, as +colored panes in a window are darker than the colorless glass, +but all are alike in a key which no artifice of painting can +approach. +</p><p> +For the rest, the phenomena of diffraction are not yet +arranged systematically enough to be usefully discussed; +some of them involving the resolution of the light, and others +merely its intensification. My attention was first drawn to +them near St. Laurent, on the Jura mountains, by the vivid +reflection, (so it seemed), of the image of the sun from a +particular point of a cloud in the west, after the sun itself +was beneath the horizon: but in this image there were no +prismatic colors, neither is the constantly seen metamorphosis +of pine forests into silver filigree on ridges behind which the +sun is rising or setting, accompanied with any prismatic hue; +the trees become luminous, but not iridescent: on the other +hand, in his great account of his ascent of Mont Blanc with +Mr. Huxley, Professor Tyndall thus describes the sun's remarkable +behavior on that occasion:—"As we attained the +brow which forms the entrance to the Grand Plateau, he +<i>hung his disk upon a spike of rock</i> to our left, and, surrounded +by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous colors, +blazed down upon us." ('Glaciers of the Alps,' p. 76.) +</p><p> +Nothing irritates me more, myself, than having the color +of my own descriptions of phenomena in anywise attributed +by the reader to accidental states either of my mind or +body;—but I cannot, for once, forbear at least the innocent +question to Professor Tyndall, whether the extreme beauty +of these 'interference spectra' may not have been partly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44" href="#Page_44">[44]</a></span> +owing to the extreme <i>sobriety</i> of the observer? no refreshment, +it appears, having been attainable the night before at the +Grands Mulets, except the beverage diluted with dirty snow, +of which I have elsewhere quoted the Professor's pensive +report,—"my memory of that tea is not pleasant."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_19" id="Footnote_16_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_19"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> 'Either stationary or slow in motion, reflecting unresolved +light.' +</p><p> +The rate of motion is of course not essentially connected +with the method of illumination; their connection, in this +instance, needs explanation of some points which could not +be dealt with in the time of a single lecture. +</p><p> +It is before said, with reserve only, that "a cloud is where +it is seen, and is not where it is not seen." But thirty years +ago, in 'Modern Painters,' I pointed out (see the paragraph +quoted in note 8th), the extreme difficulty of arriving at the +cause of cloud outline, or explaining how, if we admitted at +any given moment the atmospheric moisture to be generally +diffused, it could be chilled by formal <i>chills</i> into formal +clouds. How, for instance, in the upper cirri, a thousand +little chills, alternating with a thousand little warmths, +could stand still as a thousand little feathers. +</p><p> +But the first step to any elucidation of the matter is in the +firmly fixing in our minds the difference between windless +clouds, unaffected by any conceivable local accident, and +windy clouds, affected by some change in their circumstances +as they move. +</p><p> +In the sunset at Abbeville, represented in my first diagram, +the air is absolutely calm at the ground surface, and the +motion of its upper currents extremely slow. There is no +local reason assignable for the presence of the cirri above, or +of the thundercloud below. There is no conceivable cause +either in the geology, or the moral character, of the two sides +of the town of Abbeville, to explain why there should be +decorative fresco on the sky over the southern suburb, and a +muttering heap of gloom and danger over the northern. The +electric cloud is as calm in motion as the harmless one; it +changes its forms, indeed; but imperceptibly; and, so far as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45" href="#Page_45">[45]</a></span> +can be discerned, only at its own will is exalted, and with its +own consent abased. +</p><p> +But in my second diagram are shown forms of vapor +sustaining at every instant all kinds of varying local influences; +beneath, fastened down by mountain attraction, above, +flung afar by distracting winds; here, spread abroad into +blanched sheets beneath the sunshine, and presently gathered +into strands of coiled cordage in the shade. Their total +existence is in metamorphosis, and their every aspect a surprise, +or a deceit.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_20" id="Footnote_17_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_20"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> 'Finely comminuted water or <i>ice</i>.' +</p><p> +My impression that these clouds were glacial was at once +confirmed by a member of my audience, Dr. John Rae, in +conversation after the lecture, in which he communicated +to me the perfectly definite observations which he has had the +kindness to set down with their dates for me, in the following +letter:— +</p><p> +</p><div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"><br /> +"4, <span class="smcap">Addison Gardens, Kensington</span>, <i>4th Feb., 1884.</i><br /> +</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I have looked up my old journal of thirty +years ago, written in pencil because it was impossible to keep +ink unfrozen in the snow-hut in which I passed the winter +of 1853-4, at Repulse Bay, on the Arctic Circle.<a name="FNanchor_A_21" id="FNanchor_A_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_21" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> +</p><p> +On the 1st of February, 1854, I find the following:—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46" href="#Page_46">[46]</a></span> +</p><p> +'A beautiful appearance of some cirrus clouds near the +sun, the central part of the cloud being of a fine pink or red, +then green, and pink fringe. This continued for about a +quarter of an hour. The same was observed on the 27th of +the month, but not so bright. Distance of clouds from sun, +from 3° to 6°.' +</p><p> +On the 1st February the temperature was 38° below zero, +and on the 27th February 26° below. +</p><p> +'On the 23d and 30th (of March) the same splendid +appearance of clouds as mentioned in last month's journal +was observed. On the first of these days, about 10.30 a.m., +it was extremely beautiful. The clouds were about 8° or 10° +from the sun, below him and slightly to the eastward,—having +a green fringe all round, then pink; the center part at +first green, and then pink or red.' +</p><p> +The temperature was 21° below zero, Fahrenheit. +</p><p> +There may have been other colors—blue, perhaps—but I +merely noted the most prominent; and what I call green may +have been bluish, although I do not mention this last color +in my notes. +</p><p> +From the lowness of the temperature at the time, the +clouds <i>must</i> have been frozen moisture. +</p><p> +The phenomenon is by no means common, even in the +Arctic zone. +</p><p> +The second beautiful cloud-picture shown this afternoon +brought so visibly to my memory the appearance seen by +me as above described, that I could not avoid remarking +upon it. +</p><p> +</p> +<p class="quotsig2"> +Believe me very truly yours,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -3.5em;"><span class="smcap">John Rae</span>." (M.D., F.R.S.)</span><br /> +</p></div> +<p> +Now this letter enables me to leave the elements of your +problem for you in very clear terms. +</p><p> +Your sky—altogether—may be composed of one or more +of four things:— +</p> +<div class="blockquot"><p> +Molecules of water in warm weather.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47" href="#Page_47">[47]</a></span> +Molecules of ice in cold weather.<br /> +Molecules of water-vapor in warm weather.<br /> +Molecules of ice-vapor in cold weather.<br /> +</p></div> +<p> +But of the size, distances, or modes of attraction between +these different kinds of particles, I find no definite information +anywhere, except the somewhat vague statement by +Sir William Thomson, that "if a drop of water could be +magnified so as to be as large as the earth, and have a diameter +of eight thousand miles, then a molecule of this water +in it would appear <i>somewhat larger than a shot</i>." (What +kind of shot?) "<i>and somewhat smaller than a cricket-ball</i>"! +</p><p> +And as I finally review the common accounts given of cloud +formation, I find it quite hopeless for the general reader to +deal with the quantity of points which have to be kept in +mind and severally valued, before he can account for any +given phenomena. I have myself, in many of the passages +of 'Modern Painters' before referred to, conceived of cloud +too narrowly as always produced by <i>cold</i>, whereas the temperature +of a cloud must continually, like that of our visible +breath in frosty weather, or of the visible current of steam, +or the smoking of a warm lake surface under sudden frost, +be above that of the surrounding atmosphere; and yet I never +remember entering a cloud without being chilled by it, and +the darkness of the plague-wind, unless in electric states of +the air, is always accompanied by deadly chill. +</p><p> +Nor, so far as I can read, has any proper account yet been +given of the balance, in serene air, of the warm air under the +cold, in which the warm air is at once compressed by weight, +and expanded by heat, and the cold air is thinned by its +elevation, yet contracted by its cold. There is indeed no +possibility of embracing the conditions in a single sentence, +any more than in a single thought. But the practical balance +is effected in calm air, so that its lower strata have no tendency +to rise, like the air in a fire balloon, nor its higher +strata to fall, unless they congeal into rain or snow. +</p><p> +I believe it will be an extreme benefit to my younger +readers if I write for them a little 'Grammar of Ice and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48" href="#Page_48">[48]</a></span> +Air,' collecting the known facts on all these matters, and I +am much minded to put by my ecclesiastical history for a +while, in order to relate what is legible of the history of the +visible Heaven.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_A_21" id="Footnote_A_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_21"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> I trust that Dr. Rae will forgive my making the reader better aware +of the real value of this communication by allowing him to see also the +following passage from the kind private letter by which it was supplemented:— +</p><p> +"Many years in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, I and my men +became educated for Arctic work, in which I was five different times +employed, in two of which expeditions we lived wholly by our own hunting +and fishing for twelve months, once in a stone house (very disagreeable), +and another winter in a snow hut (better), <i>without fire of any +kind to warm us</i>. On the first of these expeditions, 1846-7, my little party, +there being no officer but myself, surveyed seven hundred miles of coast +of Arctic America by a sledge journey, which Parry, Ross, Bach, and +Lyon had failed to accomplish, costing the country about £70,000 or +£80,000 at the lowest computation. The total expense of my little party, +including my own pay, was under fourteen hundred pounds sterling. +</p><p> +"My Arctic work has been recognized by the award of the founder's +gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society (before the completion of +the whole of it)."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_22" id="Footnote_18_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_22"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 'You can't get a billiard ball to fall a shivering on its +own account.'—I am under correction in this statement by +the Lucasian professor of Cambridge, with respect to the +molecules of bodies capable of 'epipolizing' light. "Nothing +seems more natural than to suppose that the incident +vibrations of the luminiferous ether produce vibratory movements +among the ultimate molecules of sensitive substances, +and that the molecules in return, <i>swinging on their own +account</i>, produce vibrations in the luminous ether, and thus +cause the sensation of light. The periodic times of these +vibrations depend upon the periods in which the molecules +are <i>disposed to swing</i>." ('On the Changes of Refrangibility +of Light,' p. 549.) +</p><p> +It seems to me a pleasant conclusion, this, of recent +science, and suggestive of a perfectly regenerate theology. +The 'Let there be light' of the former Creation is first +expanded into 'Let there be a disposition of the molecules +to swing,' and the destinies of mankind, no less than the +vitality of the universe, depend thereafter upon this amiable, +but perhaps capricious, and at all events not easily influenced +or anticipated, disposition! +</p><p> +Is it not also strange that in a treatise entering into so +high mathematical analysis as that from which I quote, the +false word 'swing,' expressing the action of a body liable +to continuous arrest by gravitation, should be employed to +signify the oscillation, wholly unaffected by gravity, of substance +in which the motion once originated, may cease only +with the essence of the body? +</p><p> +It is true that in men of high scientific caliber, such as +the writer in this instance, carelessness in expression does +not affect the security of their conclusions. But in men of +lower rank, mental defects in language indicate fatal flaws in +thought. And although the constant habit to which I owe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49" href="#Page_49">[49]</a></span> +my (often foolishly praised) "command of language"—of +never allowing a sentence to pass proof in which I have not +considered whether, for the vital word in it, a better could +be found in the dictionary, makes me somewhat morbidly +intolerant of careless diction, it may be taken for an +extremely useful and practical rule, that if a man can think +clearly he will write well, and that no good science was ever +written in bad English. So that, before you consider whether +a scientific author says a true or a false thing, you had better +first look if he is able properly to say <i>any</i>thing,—and +secondly, whether his conceit permits him to say anything +properly. +</p><p> +Thus, when Professor Tyndall, endeavoring to write +poetically of the sun, tells you that "The Lilies of the field +are his workmanship," you may observe, first, that since the +sun is not a man, nothing that he does is workmanship; +while even the figurative statement that he rejoices <i>as</i> a +strong man to run his course, is one which Professor Tyndall +has no intention whatever of admitting. And you may then +observe, in the second place, that, if even in that figurative +sense, the lilies of the field are the sun's workmanship, in the +same sense the lilies of the hothouse are the stove's workmanship,—and +in perfectly logical parallel, you, who are alive +here to listen to me, because you have been warmed and fed +through the winter, are the workmanship of your own coal-scuttles. +</p><p> +Again, when Mr. Balfour Stewart begins a treatise on the +'Conservation of Energy,' which is to conclude, as we shall +see presently, with the prophecy of its total extinction as +far as the present world is concerned,—by clothing in a +"properly scientific garb," our innocent impression that +there is some difference between the blow of a rifle stock and a +rifle ball; he prepares for the scientific toilet by telling us +in italics that "the something which the rifle ball possesses +in contradistinction to the rifle stock is clearly the power of +overcoming resistance," since "it can penetrate through oak-wood +or through water—or (alas! that it should be so often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50" href="#Page_50">[50]</a></span> +tried) through the human body; and <i>this power of penetration</i>" +(italics now mine) "<i>is the distinguishing characteristic +of a substance moving with very great velocity</i>. Let +us define by the term 'Energy,' this power which the rifle +ball possesses of overcoming obstacles, or of doing work." +</p><p> +Now, had Mr. Stewart been a better scholar, he would have +felt, even if he had not known, that the Greek word 'energy' +could only be applied to the living—and of living, with +perfect propriety only to the <i>mental</i>, action of animals, and +that it could no more be applied as a 'scientific garb,' to the +flight of a rifle ball, than to the fall of a dead body. And, if +he had attained thus much, even of the science of language, +it is just possible that the small forte and faculty of thought +he himself possesses might have been energized so far as to +perceive that the force of all inertly moving bodies, whether +rifle stock, rifle ball, or rolling world, is under precisely one +and the same relation to their weights and velocities; that +the effect of their impact depends—not merely on their pace, +but their constitution; and on the relative forms and stability +of the substances they encounter, and that there is no +more quality of Energy, though much less quality of Art, +in the swiftly penetrating shot, or crushing ball, than in the +deliberately contemplative and administrative puncture by a +gnat's proboscis, or a seamstress' needle. +</p><p> +Mistakes of this kind, beginning with affectations of diction, +do not always invalidate general statements or conclusions,—for +a bad writer often equivocates out of a blunder +as he equivocates into one,—but I have been strict in pointing +out the confusions of idea admitted in scientific books between +the movement of a swing, that of a sounding violin chord, +and that of an agitated liquid, because these confusions have +actually enabled Professor Tyndall to keep the scientific +world in darkness as to the real nature of glacier motion for +the last twenty years; and to induce a resultant quantity of +aberration in the scientific mind concerning glacial erosion, +of which another twenty years will scarcely undo the damage.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_23" id="Footnote_19_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_23"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> 'Force and pace.'—Among the nearer questions which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51" href="#Page_51">[51]</a></span> +the careless terminology on which I have dwelt in the above +note has left unsettled, I believe the reader will be surprised, +as much as I am myself, to find that of the mode of impulse in +a common gust of wind! Whence is its strength communicated +to it, and how gathered in it? and what is the difference +of manner in the impulse between compressible gas and incompressible +fluid? For instance: The water at the head of a +weir is passing every instant from slower into quicker motion; +but (until broken in the air) the fast flowing water is just as +dense as the slowly flowing water. But a fan alternately compresses +and rarefies the air between it and the cheek, and the +violence of a destructive gust in a gale of wind means a +momentary increase in velocity and density of which I cannot +myself in the least explain,—and find in no book on dynamics +explained,—the mechanical causation. +</p><p> +The following letter, from a friend whose observations on +natural history for the last seven or eight years have been +consistently valuable and instructive to me, will be found, +with that subjoined in the note, in various ways interesting; +but especially in its notice of the inefficiency of ordinary +instrumental registry in such matters:— +</p><p> +</p><div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"><br /> +"6, <span class="smcap">Moira Place, Southampton</span>, <i>Feb. 8th, 1884</i>.<br /> +</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Ruskin</span>,—Some time since I troubled you +with a note or two about sea-birds, etc.... but perhaps +I should never have ventured to trouble you again, had not +your lecture on the 'Storm Clouds' touched a subject which +has deeply interested me for years past. I had, of course, no +idea that you had noticed this thing, though I might have +known that, living the life you do, you must have done so. As +for me, it has been a source of perplexity for years: so much +so, that I began to wonder at times whether I was not under +some mental delusion about it, until the strange theatrical +displays, of the last few months, for which I was more or less +prepared, led so many to use their eyes, unmuzzled by brass or +glass, for a time. I know you do not bother, or care much to +read newspapers, but I have taken the liberty of cutting out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52" href="#Page_52">[52]</a></span> +and sending a letter of mine, sent on the 1st January to an +evening paper,<a name="FNanchor_A_24" id="FNanchor_A_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_24" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> upon this subject, thinking you might like to +know that one person, at any rate, has seen that strange, +bleared look about the sun, shining so seldom except through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53" href="#Page_53">[53]</a></span> +a ghastly glare of pale, persistent haze. May it be that the +singular coloring of the sunsets marks an end of this long +period of plague-cloud, and that in them we have promise of +steadier weather? (No: those sunsets were entirely distinct +phenomena, and promised, if anything, only evil.—R.) +</p><p> +I was glad to see that in your lecture you gave the dependants +upon the instrument-makers a warning. On the 26th I +had a heavy sailing-boat lifted and blown, from where she lay +hauled up, a distance of four feet, which, as the boat has four +hundred-weight of iron upon her keel, gives a wind-gust, or +force, not easily measured by instruments. +</p><p> +</p><p class="quotsig2"> +Believe me, dear Mr. Ruskin,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -3em;">Yours sincerely,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -1.5em;"><span class="smcap">Robt. C. Leslie</span>."</span></span><br /> +</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54" href="#Page_54">[54]</a></span></p><p> +</p><p> +I am especially delighted, in this letter, by my friend's +vigorously accurate expression, eyes "unmuzzled by brass or +glass." I have had occasion continually, in my art-lectures, +to dwell on the great law of human perception and power, that +the beauty which is good for us is prepared for the natural +focus of the sight, and the sounds which are delightful to us +for the natural power of the nerves of the ear; and the art +which is admirable in us, is the exercise of our own bodily +powers, and not carving by sand-blast, nor oratorizing through +a speaking trumpet, nor dancing with spring heels. But +more recently, I have become convinced that even in matters +of science, although every added mechanical power has its +proper use and sphere, yet the things which are vital to our +happiness and prosperity can only be known by the rational +use and subtle skill of our natural powers. We may trust the +instrument with the prophecy of storm, or registry of rainfall; +but the conditions of atmospheric change, on which +depend the health of animals and fruitfulness of seeds, can +only be discerned by the eye and the bodily sense. +</p><p> +Take, for simplest and nearest example, this question of the +stress of wind. It is not the actual <i>power</i> that is immeasurable, +if only it would stand to be measured! Instruments +could easily now be invented which would register not only a +blast that could lift a sailing boat, but one that would sink +a ship of the line. But, lucklessly—the blast won't pose to +the instrument! nor can the instrument be adjusted to the +blast. In the gale of which my friend speaks in his next +letter, 26th January, a gust came down the hill above Coniston +village upon two old oaks, which were well rooted in the slate +rock, and some fifty or sixty feet high—the one, some twenty +yards below the other. The blast tore the highest out of the +ground, peeling its roots from the rock as one peels an orange—swept +the head of the lower tree away with it in one ruin, +and snapped the two leader branches of the upper one over +the other's stump, as one would break one's cane over some +people's heads, if one got the chance. In wind action of this +kind the amount of actual force used is the least part of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55" href="#Page_55">[55]</a></span> +business;—it is the suddenness of its concentration, and the +lifting and twisting strength, as of a wrestler, which make +the blast fatal; none of which elements of storm-power can +be recognized by mechanical tests. In my friend's next letter, +however, he gives us some evidence of the <i>consistent</i> +strength of this same gale, and of the electric conditions which +attended it:—the prefatory notice of his pet bird I had meant +for 'Love's Meinie,' but it will help us through the grimness +of our studies here. +</p> +<div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"><br /> +"<i>March 3d, 1884.</i><br /> +</p> +<p> +My small blackheaded gull Jack is still flourishing, and +the time is coming when I look for that singularly sudden +change in the plumage of his head which took place last +March. I have asked all my ocean-going friends to note +whether these little birds are not the gulls <i>par excellence</i> of +the sea; and so far all I have heard from them confirms this. +It seems almost incredible; but my son, a sailor, who met +that hurricane of the 26th of January, writes to me to say +that out in the Bay of Biscay on the morning after the gale, +'though it was blowing like blazes, I observed some little +gulls of Jacky's species, and they followed us half way across +the Bay, seeming to find shelter under the lee of our ship. +Some alighted now and then, and rested upon the water as if +tired.' When one considers that these birds must have been +at sea all that night somewhere, it gives one a great idea of +their strength and endurance. My son's ship, though a +powerful ocean steamer, was for two whole hours battling +head to sea off the Eddystone that night, and for that time +the lead gave no increase of soundings, so that she could have +made no headway during those two hours; while all the time +her yards had the St. Elmo's fire at their ends, looking as +though a blue light was burning at each yard-arm, and this +was about all they could see. +</p><p> +</p><p class="quotsig2"> +Yours sincerely,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -2em;"><span class="smcap">Robt. C. Leslie</span>."</span><br /> +</p></div><p> +The next letter, from a correspondent with whom I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56" href="#Page_56">[56]</a></span> +the most complete sympathy in some expressions of his postscript +which are yet, I consider, more for my own private ear +than for the public eye, describes one of the more malignant +phases of the plague-wind, which I forgot to notice in my +lecture. +</p><p> +</p><div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"><br /> +"<span class="smcap">Burnham, Somerset</span>, <i>February 7th, 1884</i>.<br /> +</p> +<p> +<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I read with great interest your first lecture +at Oxford on cloud and wind (very indifferently reported in +'The Times'). You have given a name to a wind I've known +for years. You call it the plague—I call it the devil-wind: +<i>e. g.</i>, on April 29th, 1882, morning warmer, then rain storms +from east; afternoon, rain squalls; wind, west by south, +rough; barometer falling awfully; 4.30 p.m., tremendous +wind.—April 30th, all the leaves of the trees, all plants black +and dead, as if a fiery blast had swept over them. <i>All the +hedges on windward side black as black tea.</i> +</p><p> +Another devil-wind came towards the end of last summer. +The next day, all the leaves were falling sere and yellow, as +if it were late autumn. +</p><p> +</p><p class="quotsig2"> +I am, dear sir,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -3em;">Yours faithfully,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -1.5em;"><span class="smcap">A. H. Birkett</span>."</span></span><br /> +</p></div> +<p> +I remember both these blights well; they were entirely +terrific; but only sudden maxima of the constant morbific +power of this wind;—which, if Mr. Birkett saw my <i>personal</i> +notices of, intercalated among the scientific ones, he would +find alluded to in terms quite as vigorously damning as he +could desire: and the actual effect of it upon my thoughts and +work has been precisely that which would have resulted from +the visible phantom of an evil spirit, the absolute opponent +of the Queen of the Air,—Typhon against Athena,—in a +sense of which I had neither the experience nor the conception +when I wrote the illustrations of the myth of Perseus in +'Modern Painters.' Not a word of all those explanations of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57" href="#Page_57">[57]</a></span> +Homer and Pindar could have been written in weather like +that of the last twelve years; and I am most thankful to have +got them written, before the shadow came, and I could still +see what Homer and Pindar saw. I quote one passage only—Vol. +v., p. 141—for the sake of a similitude which reminds +me of one more thing I have to say here—and a bit of its +note—which I think is a precious little piece, not of word-painting, +but of simply told feeling—(<i>that</i>, if people knew +it, is my real power). +</p><p> +"On the Yorkshire and Derbyshire hills, when the rain-cloud +is low and much broken, and the steady west wind fills +all space with its strength,<a name="FNanchor_B_25" id="FNanchor_B_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_25" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> the sun-gleams fly like golden +vultures; they are flashes rather than shinings; the dark +spaces and the dazzling race and skim along the acclivities, +and dart and <i>dip from crag to dell, swallow-like</i>." +</p><p> +The dipping of the shadows here described of course is +caused only by that of the dingles they cross; but I have not +in any of my books yet dwelt enough on the difference of +character between the dipping and the mounting winds. Our +wildest phase of the west wind here at Coniston is 'swallow-like' +with a vengeance, coming down on the lake in swirls +which spurn the spray under them as a fiery horse does the +dust. On the other hand, the softly ascending winds express +themselves in the grace of their cloud motion, as if set to the +continuous music of a distant song.<a name="FNanchor_C_26" id="FNanchor_C_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_26" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> +</p><p> +The reader will please note also that whenever, either in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58" href="#Page_58">[58]</a></span> +'Modern Painters' or elsewhere, I speak of rate of flight in +clouds, I am thinking of it as measured by the horizontal +distance overpast in given time, and not as apparent only, +owing to the nearness of the spectator. All low clouds appear +to move faster than high ones, the pace being supposed equal +in both: but when I speak of quick or slow cloud, it is always +with respect to a given altitude. In a fine summer morning, +a cloud will wait for you among the pines, folded to and fro +among their stems, with a branch or two coming out here, and +a spire or two there: you walk through it, and look back to it. +At another time, on the same spot, the fury of cloud-flood +drifts past you like the Rhine at Schaffhausen. +</p><p> +The space even of the doubled lecture does not admit of +my entering into any general statement of the action of the +plague-cloud in Switzerland and Italy; but I must not omit +the following notes of its aspect in the high Alps. +</p><div class="blockquot"><p class="quotdate"> +"<span class="smcap">Sallenches</span>, <i>11th September, 1882</i>.<br /> +</p> +<p> +This morning, at half-past five, the Mont Blanc summit +was clear, and the greater part of the Aiguilles du Plan and +Midi clear dark—all, against pure cirri, lighted beneath by +sunrise; the sun of course not visible yet from the valley. +</p><p> +By seven o'clock, the plague-clouds had formed in <i>brown</i> +flakes, down to the base of the Aiguille de Bionassay; entirely +covering the snowy ranges; the sun, as it rose to us here, shone +only for about ten minutes—gilding in its old glory the range +of the Dorons,—before one had time to look from peak to +peak of it, the plague-cloud formed from the west, hid Mont<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59" href="#Page_59">[59]</a></span> +Joli, and steadily choked the valley with advancing streaks +of dun-colored mist. Now—twenty minutes to nine—there is +not <i>one ray</i> of sunshine on the whole valley, or on its mountains, +from the Forclaz down to Cluse. +</p><p> +These phenomena are only the sequel of a series of still +more strange and sad conditions of the air, which have continued +among the Savoy Alps for the last eight days, (themselves +the sequel of others yet more general, prolonged, and +harmful). But the weather was perfectly fine at Dijon, and +I doubt not at Chamouni, on the 1st of this month. On the +2d, in the evening, I saw, from the Jura, heavy thunderclouds +in the west; on the 3d, the weather broke at Morez, +in hot thunder-showers, with intervals of scorching sun; on +the 4th, 5th, and 6th there was nearly continuous rain at St. +Cergues, the Alps being totally invisible all the time. The +sky cleared on the night of the 6th, and on the 7th I saw from +the top of the Dole all the western plateaux of Jura quite +clearly; but <i>the entire range of the Alps</i>, from the Moleson +to the Salève, and all beyond,—snow, crag and hill-side,—were +wrapped and buried in one unbroken gray-brown winding-sheet, +of such cloud <i>as I had never seen till that day touch +an Alpine summit</i>. +</p><p> +The wind, from the east, (so that it blew <i>up</i> over the edge +of the Dole cliff, and admitted of perfect shelter on the slope +to the west,) was bitter cold, and extremely violent: the sun +overhead, bright enough, and remained so during the afternoon; +the plague-cloud reaching from the Alps only about as +far as the southern shore of the lake of Geneva; but we could +not see the Salève; nor even the north shore, farther than +to Morges! I reached the Col de la Faucille at sunset, when, +for a few minutes, the Mont Blanc and Aiguille Verte +showed themselves in dull red light, but were buried again, +before the sun was quite down, in the rising deluge of cloud-poison. +I saw no farther than the Voirons and Brezon—and +scarcely those, during the electric heat of the 9th at Geneva; +and last Saturday and Sunday have been mere whirls and +drifts of indecisive, but always sullen, storm. This morning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60" href="#Page_60">[60]</a></span> +I saw the snows clear for the first time, having been, during +the whole past week, on steady watch for them. +</p><p> +I have written that the clouds of the 7th were such as I +never before saw on the Alps. Often, during the past ten +years, I have seen them on my own hills, and in Italy in +1874; but it has always chanced to be fine weather, or common +rain and cold, when I have been among the snowy chains; +and now from the Dole for the first time I saw the plague-cloud +on <i>them</i>." +</p></div></div> +<div class="footnote2"><p><br /><a name="Footnote_A_24" id="Footnote_A_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_24"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> '<span class="smcap">The Look of the Sky</span>. +</p><p class="center"> +'<i>To the</i> <span class="smcap">Editor</span> <i>of the</i> <span class="smcap">St. James's Gazette</span>. +</p><p> +'<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I have been a very constant though not a scientific observer of +the sky for a period of forty years; and I confess to a certain feeling of +astonishment at the way in which the "recent celestial phenomena" +seem to have taken the whole body of scientific observers by surprise. It +would even appear that something like these extraordinary sunsets was +necessary to call the attention of such observers to what has long been a +source of perplexity to a variety of common folk, like sailors, farmers, +and fishermen. But to such people the look of the weather, and what +comes of that look, is of far more consequence than the exact amount of +ozone or the depth or width of a band of the spectrum. +</p><p> +'Now, to all such observers, including myself, it has been plain that of +late neither the look of the sky nor the character of the weather has been, +as we should say, what it used to be; and those whose eyes were strong +enough to look now and then toward the sun have noticed a very marked +increase of what some would call a watery look about him, which might +perhaps be better expressed as a white sheen or glare, at times developing +into solar halo or mock suns, as noted in your paper of the 2d of October +last year. A fisherman would describe it as "white and davery-like." +So far as my observation goes, this appearance was only absent here for +a limited period during the present summer, when we had a week or +two of nearly normal weather; the summer before it was seldom absent. +</p><p> +'Again, those whose business or pleasure has depended on the use of +wind-power have all remarked the strange persistence of hard westerly +and easterly winds, the westerly ones at times partaking of an almost +trade-wind-like force and character. The summer of 1882 was especially +remarkable for these winds, while each stormy November has been followed +by a period about mid-winter of mild calm weather with dense fog. During +these strong winds in summer and early autumn the weather would +remain bright and sunny, and to a landsman would be not remarkable in +any way, while the barometer has been little affected by them; but it has +been often observed by those employed on the water that when it ceased +blowing half a gale the sky at once became overcast, with damp weather +or rain. This may all seem common enough to most people; but to those +accustomed to gauge the wind by the number of reefs wanted in a mainsail +or foresail it was not so; and the number of consecutive days when two +or more reefs have been kept tied down during the last few summers has +been remarkable—alternating at times with equally persistent spells of +calm and fog such as we are now passing through. Again, we have had +an unusually early appearance of ice in the Atlantic, and most abnormal +weather over Central Europe; while in a letter I have just received from +an old hand on board a large Australian clipper, he speaks of heavy gales +and big seas off that coast in almost the height of their summer. +</p><p> +'Now, upon all this, in our season of long twilights, we have bursting +upon us some clear weather; with a display of cloud-forms or vapor at +such an elevation that, looking at them one day through an opening in +the nearer clouds, they seemed so distant as to resemble nothing but the +delicate grain of ivory upon a billiard-ball. And yet with the fact that +two-thirds of this earth is covered with water, and bearing in mind the +effect which a very small increase of sun-power would have in producing +cloud and lifting it above its normal level for a time, we are asked to +believe that this sheen is all dust of some kind or other, in order to explain +what are now known as the "recent sunsets": though I venture to +think that we shall see more of them yet when the sun comes our way +again. +</p><p> +'At first sight, increased sun-power would seem to mean more sunshine; +but a little reflection would show us that this would not be for long, while +any considerable addition to the sun's power would be followed by such +a vast increase of vapor that we should only see him, in our latitudes, at +very short intervals. I am aware that all this is most unscientific; but +I have read column after column of explanation written by those who are +supposed to know all about such things, and find myself not a jot the +wiser for it. Do you know anybody who is?—I am, Sir, your obedient +servant, +</p> +<p class="quotdate"><br /> +'<span class="smcap">An Unscientific Observer</span>. (<span class="smcap">R. Leslie</span>.)<br /> +<i>January 1</i>.'<br /> +</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><br /><a name="Footnote_B_25" id="Footnote_B_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_25"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> "I have been often at great heights on the Alps in rough weather, +and have seen strong gusts of storm in the plains of the south. But, to +get full expression of the very heart and meaning of wind, there is no +place like a Yorkshire moor. I think Scottish breezes are thinner, very +bleak and piercing, but not substantial. If you lean on them they will +let you fall, but one may rest against a Yorkshire breeze as one would on +a quickset hedge. I shall not soon forget,—having had the good fortune +to meet a vigorous one on an April morning, between Hawes and Settle, +just on the flat under Wharnside,—the vague sense of wonder <i>with which +I watched Ingleborough stand without rocking</i>."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><br /><a name="Footnote_C_26" id="Footnote_C_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_26"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> Compare Wordsworth's +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i0">"Oh beauteous birds, methinks ye measure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your movements to some heavenly tune."<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +<p> +And again— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i10">"While the mists,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flying and rainy vapors, call out shapes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And phantoms from the crags and solid earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As fast as a musician scatters sounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of an instrument."<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +<p> +And again— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i0">"The Knight had ridden down from Wensley moor,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the slow motion of a summer cloud."<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_27" id="Footnote_20_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_27"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> 'Blasphemy.'—If the reader can refer to my papers on +Fiction in the 'Nineteenth Century,' he will find this word +carefully defined in its Scriptural, and evermore necessary, +meaning,—'Harmful speaking'—not against God only, but +against man, and against all the good works and purposes of +Nature. The word is accurately opposed to 'Euphemy,' the +right or well-speaking of God and His world; and the two +modes of speech are those which going out of the mouth +sanctify or defile the man. +</p><p> +Going out of the mouth, that is to say, deliberately and of +purpose. A French postilion's 'Sacr-r-ré'—loud, with the +low 'Nom de Dieu' following between his teeth, is not blasphemy, +unless against his horse;—but Mr. Thackeray's close +of his Waterloo chapter in 'Vanity Fair,' "And all the night +long Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his +face dead with a bullet through his heart," is blasphemy of +the most fatal and subtle kind. +</p><p> +And the universal instinct of blasphemy in the modern +vulgar scientific mind is above all manifested in its love of +what is ugly, and natural inthrallment by the abominable;—so +that it is ten to one if, in the description of a new bird, +you learn much more of it than the enumerated species of +vermin that stick to its feathers; and in the natural history +museum of Oxford, humanity has been hitherto taught, not by +portraits of great men, but by the skulls of cretins. +</p><p> +But the <i>deliberate</i> blasphemy of science, the assertion of its +own virtue and dignity against the always implied, and often<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61" href="#Page_61">[61]</a></span> +asserted, vileness of all men and—Gods,—heretofore, is the +most wonderful phenomenon, so far as I can read or perceive, +that hitherto has arisen in the always marvelous course of +the world's mental history. +</p><p> +Take, for brief general type, the following 92d paragraph +of the 'Forms of Water':— +</p><p> +"But while we thus acknowledge our limits, there is also +reason for wonder at the extent to which Science has mastered +the system of nature. From age to age and from generation +to generation, fact has been added to fact and law to law, +the true method and order of the Universe being thereby more +and more revealed. In doing this, Science has encountered +and overthrown various forms of superstition and deceit, of +credulity and imposture. But the world continually produces +weak persons and wicked persons, and as long as they continue +to exist side by side, as they do in this our day, very +debasing beliefs will also continue to infest the world." +</p><p> +The debasing beliefs meant being simply those of Homer, +David, and St. John<a name="FNanchor_A_28" id="FNanchor_A_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_28" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>—as against a modern French gamin's. +And what the results of the intended education of English +gamins of every degree in that new higher theology will be, +England is I suppose by this time beginning to discern. +</p><p> +In the last 'Fors'<a name="FNanchor_B_29" id="FNanchor_B_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_29" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> which I have written, on education +of a safer kind, still possible, one practical point is insisted +on chiefly,—that learning by heart, and repetition with perfect +accent and cultivated voice, should be made quite principal +branches of school discipline up to the time of going to +the university. +</p><p> +And of writings to be learned by heart, among other passages +of indisputable philosophy and perfect poetry, I include +certain chapters of the—now for the most part forgotten—wisdom +of Solomon; and of these, there is one selected por<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62" href="#Page_62">[62]</a></span>tion +which I should recommend not only school-boys and girls, +but persons of every age, if they don't know it, to learn +forthwith, as the shortest summary of Solomon's wisdom;—namely, +the seventeenth chapter of Proverbs, which being +only twenty-eight verses long, may be fastened in the dullest +memory at the rate of a verse a day in the shortest month of +the year. Out of the twenty-eight verses, I will read you +seven, for example of their tenor,—the last of the seven I will +with your good leave dwell somewhat upon. You have heard +the verses often before, but probably without remembering +that they are all in this concentrated chapter. +</p> +<div><ol> +<li><p>Verse 1.—Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, +than a house full of good eating, with strife. +</p><p> +(Remember, in reading this verse, that though +England has chosen the strife, and set every man's +hand against his neighbor, her house is not yet so full +of good eating as she expected, even though she gets +half of her victuals from America.) +</p></li> +<li><p>Verse 3.—The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for +gold, but the Lord tries the heart. +</p><p> +(Notice the increasing strength of trial for the more +precious thing: only the melting-pot for the silver—the +fierce furnace for the gold—but the Fire of the +Lord for the heart.) +</p></li> +<li><p>Verse 4.—A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. +</p><p> +(That means, for <i>you</i>, that, intending to live by +usury and swindling, you read Mr. Adam Smith and +Mr. Stuart Mill, and other such political economists.) +</p></li> +<li><p>Verse 5.—Whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his +Maker. +</p><p> +(Mocketh,—by saying that his poverty is his fault, +no less than his misfortune,—England's favorite +theory now-a-days.) +</p></li> +<li><p>Verse 12.—Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, +rather than a fool in his folly. +</p><p> +(Carlyle is often now accused of false scorn in his +calling the passengers over London Bridge, "mostly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63" href="#Page_63">[63]</a></span> +fools,"—on the ground that men are only to be justly +held foolish if their intellect is under, as only wise +when it is above, the average. But the reader will +please observe that the essential function of modern +education is to develop what capacity of mistake a +man has. Leave him at his forge and plow,—and +those tutors teach him his true value, indulge him in +no error, and provoke him to no vice. But take him +up to London,—give him her papers to read, and her +talk to hear,—and it is fifty to one you send him +presently on a fool's errand over London Bridge.) +</p></li> +<li><p>Now listen, for this verse is the question you have +mainly to ask yourselves about your beautiful all-over-England +system of competitive examination:— +</p><p> +Verse 16. Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a +fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it? +</p><p> +(You know perfectly well it isn't the wisdom you +want, but the "station in life,"—and the money!) +</p></li> +<li><p>Lastly, Verse 7.—Wisdom is before him that hath understanding, +but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of +the earth. +</p><p> +"And in the beginnings of it"! Solomon would +have written, had he lived in our day; but we will be +content with the ends at present. No scientific people, +as I told you at first, have taken any notice of the +more or less temporary phenomena of which I have +to-night given you register. But, from the constant +arrangements of the universe, the same respecting +which the thinkers of former time came to the conclusion +that they were essentially good, and to end +in good, the modern speculator arrives at the quite +opposite and extremely uncomfortable conclusion that +they are essentially evil, and to end—in nothing. +</p></li> +</ol> +</div> +<p>And I have here a volume,<a name="FNanchor_C_30" id="FNanchor_C_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_30" class="fnanchor">[C]</a> before quoted, by a very foolish +and very lugubrious author, who in his concluding chapter +gives us,—founded, you will observe, on a series of 'ifs,'—the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64" href="#Page_64">[64]</a></span> +latest scientific views concerning the order of creation. "We +have spoken already about a medium pervading space"—this +is the Scientific God, you observe, differing from the unscientific +one, in that the purest in heart cannot see—nor the +softest in heart feel—this spacious Deity—a <i>Medium</i>, pervading +space—"the office of which" (italics all mine) "appears +to be to <i>degrade</i> and ultimately <i>extinguish</i>, all differential +motion. It has been well pointed out by Thomson, that, +looked at <i>in this light</i>, the universe is a system that had a +beginning and must have an end, for a process of degradation +cannot be eternal. If we could view the Universe as a candle +not lit, then it is perhaps conceivable to regard it as having +been always in existence; but if we regard it rather as a +candle that has been lit, we become absolutely certain that it +cannot have been burning from eternity, and that a time +will come when it will cease to burn. We are led to look to +a beginning in which the particles of matter were in a diffuse +chaotic state, but endowed with the power of gravitation; and +we are led to look to an end in which the whole Universe will +be one equally heated inert mass, <i>and from which everything +like life, or motion, or beauty, will have utterly gone away</i>." +</p><p> +Do you wish me to congratulate you on this extremely +cheerful result of telescopic and microscopic observation, and +so at once close my lecture? or may I venture yet to trespass +on your time by stating to you any of the more comfortable +views held by persons who did not regard the universe in +what my author humorously calls "this <i>light</i>"? +</p><p> +In the peculiarly characteristic notice with which the +'Daily News' honored my last week's lecture, that courteous +journal charged me, in the metaphorical term now classical +on Exchange, with "hedging," to conceal my own opinions. +The charge was not prudently chosen, since, of all men now +obtaining any portion of popular regard, I am pretty well +known to be precisely the one who cares least either for hedge +or ditch, when he chooses to go across country. It is certainly +true that I have not the least mind to pin my heart on +my sleeve, for the daily daw, or nightly owl, to peck at; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65" href="#Page_65">[65]</a></span> +the essential reason for my not telling you my own opinions +on this matter is—that I do not consider them of material +consequence to you. +</p><p> +It <i>might</i> possibly be of some advantage for you to know +what—were he now living, Orpheus would have thought, or +Æschylus, or a Daniel come to judgment, or John the Baptist, +or John the Son of Thunder; but what either you, or I, or any +other Jack or Tom of us all, think,—even if we knew what to +think,—is of extremely small moment either to the Gods, the +clouds, or ourselves. +</p><p> +Of myself, however, if you care to hear it, I will tell you +thus much: that had the weather when I was young been such +as it is now, no book such as 'Modern Painters' ever would +or <i>could</i> have been written; for every argument, and every +sentiment in that book, was founded on the personal experience +of the beauty and blessing of nature, all spring and +summer long; and on the then demonstrable fact that over a +great portion of the world's surface the air and the earth +were fitted to the education of the spirit of man as closely as +a school-boy's primer is to his labor, and as gloriously as a +lover's mistress is to his eyes. +</p><p> +That harmony is now broken, and broken the world round: +fragments, indeed, of what existed still exist, and hours of +what is past still return; but month by month the darkness +gains upon the day, and the ashes of the Antipodes glare +through the night.<a name="FNanchor_D_31" id="FNanchor_D_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_31" class="fnanchor">[D]</a> +</p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66" href="#Page_66">[66]</a></span> +What consolation, or what courage, through plague, danger, +or darkness, you can find in the conviction that you are nothing +more than brute beasts driven by brute forces, your other +tutors can tell you—not I: but <i>this</i> I can tell you—and with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67" href="#Page_67">[67]</a></span> +the authority of all the masters of thought since time was +time,—that, while by no manner of vivisection you can learn +what a <i>Beast</i> is, by only looking into your own hearts you +may know what a <i>Man</i> is,—and know that his only true +happiness is to live in Hope of something to be won by him, +in Reverence of something to be worshiped by him, and in +Love of something to be cherished by him, and cherished—forever. +</p><p> +Having these instincts, his only rational conclusion is that +the objects which can fulfill them may be by his effort gained, +and by his faith discerned; and his only earthly wisdom is to +accept the united testimony of the men who have sought these +things in the way they were commanded. Of whom no single +one has ever said that his obedience or his faith had been +vain, or found himself cast out from the choir of the living +souls, whether here, or departed, for whom the song was +written:— +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i0">God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all nations.<br /></span> +</p></div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68" href="#Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"><p> +<span class="i0">Oh let the nations rejoice and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Then</i> shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.<br /></span> +</p></div></div></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_A_28" id="Footnote_A_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_28"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> With all who died in Faith, not having received the Promises, nor—according +to your modern teachers—ever to receive.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_B_29" id="Footnote_B_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_29"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Hence to the end the text is that read in termination of the lecture +on its second delivery, only with an added word or two of comment on +Proverbs xvii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_C_30" id="Footnote_C_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_30"><span class="label">[C]</span></a> 'The Conservation of Energy.' King and Co., 1873.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote2"><p><a name="Footnote_D_31" id="Footnote_D_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_31"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Written under the impression that the lurid and prolonged sunsets +of last autumn had been proved to be connected with the flight of volcanic +ashes. This has been since, I hear, disproved again. Whatever +their cause, those sunsets were, in the sense in which I myself use the +word, altogether 'unnatural' and terrific: but they have no connection +with the far more fearful, because protracted and increasing, power of the +Plague-wind. The letter from White's 'History of Selborne,' quoted by +the Rev. W. R. Andrews in his letter to the 'Times,' (dated January 8th) +seems to describe aspects of the sky like these of 1883, just a hundred +years before, in 1783: and also some of the circumstances noted, especially +the variation of the wind to all quarters without alteration in the air, correspond +with the character of the plague-wind; but the fog of 1783 made +the sun dark, with iron-colored rays—not pale, with blanching rays. I +subjoin Mr. Andrews' letter, extremely valuable in its collation of the +records of simultaneous volcanic phenomena; praying the reader also to +observe the instantaneous acknowledgment, by the true 'Naturalist,' of +horror in the violation of beneficent natural law. +</p><div class="blockquot"><p class="center"> +"<span class="smcap">The Recent Sunsets and Volcanic Eruptions</span>. +</p><p> +"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—It may, perhaps, be interesting at the present time, when so +much attention has been given to the late brilliant sunsets and sunrises, +to be reminded that almost identically the same appearances were observed +just a hundred years ago. +</p><p> +Gilbert White writes in the year 1783, in his 109th letter, published in +his 'Natural History of Selborne':— +</p><div class="blockquot3"><p> +'The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, +and full of horrible phenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and +tremendous thunderstorms that affrighted and distressed the different +counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog that prevailed +for many weeks in this island and in every part of Europe, and even +beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything +known within the memory of man. By my journal I find that I had +noticed this strange occurrence from June 23d to July 20th inclusive, +during which period the wind varied to every quarter without making +any alteration in the air. The sun at noon looked as black as a clouded +moon, and shed a ferruginous light on the ground and floors of rooms, but +was particularly lurid and blood-colored at rising and setting. The +country people began to look with a superstitious awe at the red lowering +aspect of the sun; and, indeed, there was reason for the most enlightened +person to be apprehensive, for all the while Calabria and part of the Isle +of Sicily were torn and convulsed with earthquakes, and about that juncture +a volcano sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway.' +</p><p> +Other writers also mention volcanic disturbances in this same year, +1783. We are told by Lyell and Geikie, that there were great volcanic +eruptions in and near Iceland. A submarine volcano burst forth in the +sea, thirty miles southwest of Iceland, which ejected so much pumice +that the ocean was covered with this substance, to the distance of 150 +miles, and ships were considerably impeded in their course; and a new +island was formed, from which fire and smoke and pumice were emitted. +</p><p> +Besides this submarine eruption, the volcano Skaptar-Jökull, on the +mainland, on June 11th, 1783, threw out a torrent of lava, so immense as +to surpass in magnitude the bulk of Mont Blanc, and ejected so vast an +amount of fine dust, that the atmosphere over Iceland continued loaded +with it for months afterwards. It fell in such quantities over parts of +Caithness—a distance of 600 miles—as to destroy the crops, and that year +is still spoken of by the inhabitants as the year of 'the ashie.' +</p><p> +These particulars are gathered from the text-books of Lyell and Geikie. +</p><p> +I am not aware whether the coincidence in time of the Icelandic eruptions, +and of the peculiar appearance of the sun, described by Gilbert +White, has yet been noticed; but this coincidence may very well be taken +as some little evidence towards explaining the connection between the +recent beautiful sunsets and the tremendous volcanic explosion of the Isle +of Krakatoa in August last. +</p><p> +</p><p class="quotsig"> +<span style="margin-left: -2em;"><span class="smcap">W. R. Andrews</span>, F. G. S.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -3em;">Teffont Ewyas Rectory, Salisbury, January 8th."</span></span><br /> +</p></div></div></div> + +<div class='center'> +<p><br /></p> +<table border="1" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary="Transcriber's Notes"> +<tr><td align='left'><a name="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES" id="TRANSCRIBERS_NOTES"></a>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: +<p>Pages 31-68: Adjusted placement of footnotes.</p> +<p>Pages 7 & 18: Standardized spelling of "thundercloud."</p> +<p>Pages 26, 58 & 70: Retained inconsistent hyphenation of "billiard-ball".</p> +<p>Page 20: Standardized quotation marks surrounding poem.</p> +<p>Page 22: Retained inconsistent hyphenation of "thunder-storm" in quoted material.</p> +<p>Pages 29 & 62: Standardized hyphenation of "now-a-days."</p> +<p>Pages 37 & 59: Standardized spelling of "hill-side."</p></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth +Century, by John Ruskin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORM-CLOUD *** + +***** This file should be named 20204-h.htm or 20204-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/2/0/20204/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Suzan Flanagan and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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