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diff --git a/20204.txt b/20204.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e983eb --- /dev/null +++ b/20204.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3138 @@ +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: ASCII + +*** 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 + + + + + + + THE COMPLETE WORKS + + OF + + JOHN RUSKIN + + VOLUME XXIV + + + + OUR FATHERS HAVE TOLD US + + STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY + + HORTUS INCLUSUS + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + + THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE + NINETEENTH CENTURY. + + TWO LECTURES + + DELIVERED AT THE LONDON INSTITUTION + + FEBRUARY 4TH AND 11TH, 1884. + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +PREFACE iii + +LECTURE I. (FEBRUARY 4) 1 + +LECTURE II. (FEBRUARY 11) 31 + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + +PREFACE. + + +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. + +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. + +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 I have not +verified with a chemist's analysis, and a geometer's precision. + +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. + + HERNE HILL, _12th March, 1884_. + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + +THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + + + + +THE STORM-CLOUD OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. + + +Let me first assure my audience that I have no _arriere pensee_ 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. + +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 _lately_ 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;[1] 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 question +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. + +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. + +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;[2] 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. + +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. + +Their _hearts_, 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 modification of the +Greek than of the English sentence. The old Greek is-- + + [Greek: empiplon trophes kai euphrosynes + tas kardias hemon.] + +filling with meat, and cheerfulness, our hearts. The modern Greek +should be-- + + [Greek: empiplon anemou kai aphrosynes + tas gasteras hemon.] + +filling with wind, and foolishness, our stomachs. + +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. + +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:-- + +"SIR,--Last winter when I was at Ajaccio, I was one day reading +Homer by the open window, and came upon the lines-- + + [Greek: All' emenon, nephelesin eoikotes has te Kronion + Nenemies estesen ep' akropoloisin oressin, + Atremas, ophr' heudesi menos Boreao kai allon + Zachreion anemon, hoite nephea skioenta + Pnoiesin lygyresi diaskidnasin aentes; + Hos Danaoi Troas menon empedon, oud' ephebonto.] + + +'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. + +"Perhaps this little fact may interest you, at a time when you are +attacked for your description of clouds. + + "I am, sir, yours faithfully, + G. B. HILL." + +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.[3] 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. + + "The sun goes down: methinks he sets more slowly, + Taking his last look of Assyria's empire. + How red he glares amongst those deepening clouds,[4] + Like the blood he predicts.[5] If not in vain, + Thou sun that sinkest, and ye stars which rise, + I have outwatch'd ye, reading ray by ray + The edicts of your orbs, which make Time tremble + For what he brings the nations, 't is the furthest + Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm! + An earthquake should announce so great a fall-- + A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk + To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon + Its everlasting page the end of what + Seem'd everlasting; but oh! thou TRUE sun! + _The burning oracle of all that live_, + _As fountain of all life_, and _symbol of + Him who bestows it_, wherefore dost thou limit + Thy lore unto calamity?[6] Why not + Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine + All-glorious burst from ocean? why not dart + A beam of hope athwart the future years, + As of wrath to its days? Hear me! oh, hear me! + I am thy worshiper, thy priest, thy servant-- + I have gazed on thee at thy rise and fall, + And bow'd my head beneath thy mid-day beams, + When my eye dared not meet thee. I have watch'd + For thee, and after thee, and pray'd to thee, + And sacrificed to thee, and read, and fear'd thee, + And ask'd of thee, and thou hast answer'd--but + Only to thus much. While I speak, he sinks-- + Is gone--and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge, + To the delighted west, which revels in + Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is + Death, so it be but glorious? 'T is a sunset; + And mortals may be happy to resemble + The gods but in decay." + +Thus the Chaldean priest, to the brightness of the setting sun. +Hear now the Greek girl, Myrrha, of his rising. + + "The day at last has broken. What a night + Hath usher'd it! How beautiful in heaven! + Though varied with a transitory storm, + More beautiful in that variety:[7] + How hideous upon earth! where peace, and hope, + And love, and revel, in an hour were trampled + By human passions to a human chaos, + Not yet resolved to separate elements:-- + 'T is warring still! And can the sun so rise, + So bright, so rolling back the clouds into + _Vapors more lovely than the unclouded sky_, + With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains, + And billows purpler than the ocean's, making + In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth, + So like,--we almost deem it permanent; + So fleeting,--we can scarcely call it aught + Beyond a vision, 't is so transiently + Scatter'd along the eternal vault: and yet + It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul, + And blends itself into the soul, until + Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch + Of sorrow and of love." + +How often _now_--young maids of London,--do you make _sunrise_ the +'haunted epoch' of either? + +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 _are_, and--I say +it with sorrow--of the _dis_temper of _their_ observers. + +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 _every_ cloud is, and must be, to begin with. + +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 _not_ 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 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 +_their_ line, drawn for the day and for the hour, the clouds will +not stoop, and above _theirs,_ 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. + +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 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. + +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,[8]--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 _visible_. + +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? + +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 _sink_ in the air, from that of one that won't _rise_ in +it?[9] + +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 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 _explain_ 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;[10] or the clouds on the lee side of +the Matterhorn by the wind's rubbing against the windward side of +it,[11]--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! + +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. + +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 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[12] of light--perfectly transmissive of light, and +showing at once the color of blue water and blue air on the distant +hills? + +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. + +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 _these_ aqueous molecules that are clear, and those +that are muddy, _these_ that must sink or rise, and those that must +stay where they are, _these_ that have form and stature, that are +bellied 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? + +I again leave the questions with you, and pass on. + +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[13] and others +snowy? + +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. + +Admitting degrees of darkness, we have next to ask what color, from +sunshine can the white cloud receive, and what the black? + +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. + +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 are never vermilion color, nor flamingo +color, nor canary color; nor did you ever see a full scarlet +cumulus of thundercloud. + +On opaque white vapor, then, remember, you can get a glow or a +blush of color, never a flame of it. + +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[14] 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +But, mind, all that is done by reflected light--and in that light +you never get a _green_ 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. + +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, _dif_fracting, the sun's +rays. The particles of this cloud are said--with what truth I know +not[15]--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 _green_,--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. + +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. + +"Three times during my ascent (the short ascent of 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." + +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. + +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. + +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, _ice_-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. + +But you must please here observe that while my first diagram did +with some adequateness represent to you the color facts there +spoken of, the present diagram can only _explain_, not reproduce +them. The bright reflected colors of clouds _can_ be represented in +painting, because they are relieved against darker colors, or, in +many cases, _are_ 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 _brighter than pure white_,--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. + +Enough, however, is here done to fix in your minds the distinction +between those two species of cloud,--one, either stationary,[16] or +slow in motion, _reflecting unresolved_ light; the other, +fast-flying, and _transmitting resolved_ 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,[17] 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. + +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 idea also, in using the words undulation and +vibration as synonyms. "When," says Professor Tyndall, "you are +told that the atoms of the sun _vibrate_ at different rates, and +produce _waves_ of different sizes,--your experience of water-waves +will enable you to form a tolerably clear notion of what is meant." + +'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. + +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! + +All _communicable_ vibration--of course I mean--and in dead matter: +_You_ may fall a shivering on your own account, if you like, but +you can't get a billiard-ball to fall a shivering on _its_ own +account.[18] + +Yet observe that in thus signalizing the inaccuracy of the 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 _sensations_ 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 _become_ 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?" + +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 +_moral_ 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 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." + +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. + +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. + +In Diagram 4, Mr. Severn has beautifully enlarged my sketch of a +July thundercloud of the year 1858, on the Alps 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 _hide_ 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. + +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. + +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.' + +"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 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. + +"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? + +"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." + +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. + + "_Bolton Abbey, 4th July, 1875._ + +Half-past eight, morning; the first bright morning for the last +fortnight. + +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-- + + 'All trees and simples, great and small, + That balmy leaf do bear, + Than they were painted on a wall, + No more do move, nor steir.' + + +But, an hour ago, the leaves at my window first shook slightly. +They are now trembling _continuously_, 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. + +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. There seems to be +some reference to the blackness caused by the prevalence of this wind +in the old French name of Bise, '_gray_ wind'; and, indeed, one of the +darkest and bitterest days of it I ever saw was at Vevay in 1872." + + * * * * * + +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:-- + +"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. + +"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. + +"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. + +"And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun, and +the moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about _them_, I +believe, by this time; and how they move, and what they are made +of. + +"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 _it_ is made of. + +"For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory science, one +might make it of something else. + +"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. + +"You know, if there _are_ 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!" + +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. + +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. + +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. + +2. It is a malignant _quality_ of wind, unconnected with 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. + +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. + +3. It always blows _tremulously_, 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. + +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. + +4. Not only tremulous at every moment, it is also _intermittent_ +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 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. + +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. + + "_Sunday, 25th June, 1876._ + +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 '_using up the brush_,' said Joanie; remaining in glory, +every moment best, changing from one good into another, (but only +in color or light--_form steady_,) for half an hour full, and the +clouds afterwards fading into the gray against amber twilight, +_stationary in the same form for about two hours_, at least. The +darkening rose tint remained till half-past ten, the grand time +being at nine. + +The day had been fine,--exquisite green light on afternoon hills. + + _Monday, 26th June, 1876._ + +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 _warm_ amber far into night, of +_pale_ amber all night long; hills dark-clear against it. + +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. + + _16th July._ + +The sunset almost too bright _through the blinds_ 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." + +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. + +Now then--take the following sequences of accurate description of +thunderstorm, _with_ plague-wind. + + _"22d June, 1876._ + +Thunderstorm; pitch dark, with no _blackness_,--but deep, high, +_filthiness_ 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. + + _Brantwood, 13th August, 1879._ + +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 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. + +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.) + +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. + + _Thursday, 22d Feb. 1883._ + +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 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. + + _Sunday, 17th August, 1879._ + +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." + +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 +_blanch_ 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,[19] 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 _steadily_, or went round _trembling_. +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? + +But again--you have your _sun_-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 +_shallow_ cloud, or a thin _deep_ one. In healthy weather, the sun +is hidden behind a cloud, as 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. + +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. + +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 _prismatic_ 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. + +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. + +Blanched Sun,--blighted grass,--blinded man.--If, in conclusion, +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[20] +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. + +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 _can_ the +signs of the times. Whether you can bring the _sun_ 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 _that_ it would be +extremely well to do, even though the day _were_ 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." + + + + +LECTURE II. + + _March 11th, 1884._ + + +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. + +[Footnote 1: 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 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 mediaeval 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 mediaeval 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, (_contrary to the Scriptural +narrative_, 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.] + +[Footnote 2: 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. + +They were thus described in the 4th chapter of the 7th part of +'Modern Painters':-- + +"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 in tresses of cloud, like floss silk, +looking as if each knot were a little swathe or sheaf of lighted +rain. + +"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."] + +[Footnote 3: 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 _to_ 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 _im_policies.] + +[Footnote 4: '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!] + +[Footnote 5: '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. + +"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 _crimsoned_ +sunset skies. + +"The color of blood is thus plainly taken for the leading 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 Temeraire.' + +"The sky of this Goldau is, in its scarlet and crimson, the deepest +in tone of all that I know in Turner's drawings. + +"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."] + +[Footnote 6: '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 '_Burning_ 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 _fountain_ of all life,--Byron does not +say the _origin_;--the origin of life would be the origin of the +sun itself; but it is the visible _source_ 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.] + +[Footnote 7: '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.] + +[Footnote 8: '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." + +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 _expansion_; 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! + +In its wider range that problem embraces the total mystery 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 _these_ artificial vapors fall back in +beneficent rain? or through what areas of atmosphere exist, as +invisible, though perhaps not innocuous, cloud? + +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:-- + +"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?"] + +[Footnote 9: 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 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 _falling_ 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. + +These three forms of cloud belong exclusively to calm weather; +attached drift cloud, (see Note 11) can only be formed in the +wind.] + +[Footnote 10: '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 _that the mountain is +sinking by its own weight_," 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?] + +[Footnote 11: '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. + +"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 bare cliffs of the mountain; and +to the left of it a cloud which appeared to cling tenaciously to +the rocks. + +"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 _rubbed against the +cold cone_ of the Matterhorn, the vapor was chilled and +precipitated in his lee." + +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] +but I 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. + +[Illustration] + +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. + +"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. + +"In the accompanying figure, the dark mass represents the 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." + +[Footnote 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 (A) 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 (B) 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."]] + +[Footnote 12: See below, on the different uses of the word +'reflection,' note 14, 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 _always_ +dirty,[A] and _never blue under any conditions_, neither when deep +in the distance, nor when in the electric states which produce +sulphurous blues in natural cloud. But see the next note. + +[Footnote 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 +_clean_ sky!]] + +[Footnote 13: 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.) + + "[Greek: hama de nephos eipeto pezon. + Hos d' hot' apo skopies eiden nephos aipolos aner + Erchomenon kata ponton hypo Zephyroio ioes, + To de t', aneuthen eonti, melanteron, eute pissa + Phainet', ion kata ponton, agei de te lailapa pollen; + Rhigesen te idon, hypo te speos elase mela; + Toiai ham Aiantessin areithoon aizeon + Deion es polemon pykinai kinynto phalanges + Kyaneai,]" + +I give Chapman's version--noting only that his _breath_ 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. + + "Behind them hid the ground + A cloud of foot, that seemed to smoke. And as a Goatherd spies + On some hill top, out of the sea a rainy vapor rise, + Driven by the breath of Zephyrus, which though far off he rests, + Comes on as black as pitch, and brings a tempest in his breast + Whereat he, frighted, drives his herds apace into a den; + So, darkening earth, with swords and shields, showed these with + all their men." + +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. + + "Their ground they still made good, + And in their silence and set powers, like fair still clouds they stood, + With which Jove crowns the tops of hills in any quiet day + When Boreas, and the ruder winds that use to drive away + Air's _dusky vapors_, being _loose_, in many a whistling gale, + Are pleasingly bound up and calm, and not a breath exhale."] + +[Footnote 14: 'Reflected.'--The reader must be warned in this place +of the difference implied by my use of the word 'cast' in page 11, +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] of sunset, are exactly of the same 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. + +Previously, at page 10, in calling the molecules of transparent +atmospheric 'absolutely' unreflective of light, I mean, in like +manner, unreflective from their _surfaces_. 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 +_transmitted_ rays. + +So also the green of the sky (p. 13) 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. + +[Footnote A: In speaking, at p. 11 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 _crimson_ 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."]] + +[Footnote 15: 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 clouds were +brighter than the white ones. He was convinced that the resolution +of the rays would diminish their power, and in _thinking_ 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. + +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 _hung his +disk upon a spike of rock_ 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.) + +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 owing to the extreme _sobriety_ 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."] + +[Footnote 16: 'Either stationary or slow in motion, reflecting +unresolved light.' + +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. + +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 _chills_ 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. + +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. + +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 can +be discerned, only at its own will is exalted, and with its own +consent abased. + +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.] + +[Footnote 17: 'Finely comminuted water or _ice_.' + +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:-- + + "4, ADDISON GARDENS, KENSINGTON, _4th Feb., 1884._ + +DEAR SIR,--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] + +On the 1st of February, 1854, I find the following:-- + +'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 deg. to 6 deg..' + +On the 1st February the temperature was 38 deg. below zero, and on the +27th February 26 deg. below. + +'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 deg. or 10 deg. 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.' + +The temperature was 21 deg. below zero, Fahrenheit. + +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. + +From the lowness of the temperature at the time, the clouds _must_ +have been frozen moisture. + +The phenomenon is by no means common, even in the Arctic zone. + +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. + + Believe me very truly yours, + JOHN RAE." (M.D., F.R.S.) + +Now this letter enables me to leave the elements of your problem +for you in very clear terms. + +Your sky--altogether--may be composed of one or more of four +things:-- + + Molecules of water in warm weather. + Molecules of ice in cold weather. + Molecules of water-vapor in warm weather. + Molecules of ice-vapor in cold weather. + +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 _somewhat larger +than a shot_." (What kind of shot?) "_and somewhat smaller than a +cricket-ball_"! + +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 +_cold_, 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. + +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. + +I believe it will be an extreme benefit to my younger readers if I +write for them a little 'Grammar of Ice and 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. + +[Footnote 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:-- + +"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), +_without fire of any kind to warm us_. 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 L70,000 or L80,000 at the +lowest computation. The total expense of my little party, including +my own pay, was under fourteen hundred pounds sterling. + +"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)."]] + +[Footnote 18: '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, _swinging +on their own account_, 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 +_disposed to swing_." ('On the Changes of Refrangibility of Light,' +p. 549.) + +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! + +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? + +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 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 _any_thing,--and secondly, whether his conceit +permits him to say anything properly. + +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 _as_ 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. + +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 tried) through the human body; and _this power +of penetration_" (italics now mine) "_is the distinguishing +characteristic of a substance moving with very great velocity_. Let +us define by the term 'Energy,' this power which the rifle ball +possesses of overcoming obstacles, or of doing work." + +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 _mental_, 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. + +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.] + +[Footnote 19: 'Force and pace.'--Among the nearer questions which +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. + +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:-- + + "6, MOIRA PLACE, SOUTHAMPTON, _Feb. 8th, 1884_. + +DEAR MR. RUSKIN,--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 and +sending a letter of mine, sent on the 1st January to an evening +paper,[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 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.) + +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. + + Believe me, dear Mr. Ruskin, + Yours sincerely, + ROBT. C. LESLIE." + +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. + +Take, for simplest and nearest example, this question of the stress +of wind. It is not the actual _power_ 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 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 _consistent_ 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. + + "_March 3d, 1884._ + +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 _par excellence_ 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. + + Yours sincerely, + ROBT. C. LESLIE." + +The next letter, from a correspondent with whom I have 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. + + "BURNHAM, SOMERSET, _February 7th, 1884_. + +DEAR SIR,--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: _e. g._, 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. _All the hedges on windward side black as black tea._ + +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. + + I am, dear sir, + Yours faithfully, + A. H. BIRKETT." + +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 _personal_ 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 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--(_that_, +if people knew it, is my real power). + +"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,[B] 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 _dip from crag to +dell, swallow-like_." + +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.[C] + +The reader will please note also that whenever, either in '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. + +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. + + "SALLENCHES, _11th September, 1882_. + +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. + +By seven o'clock, the plague-clouds had formed in _brown_ 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 Joli, and steadily +choked the valley with advancing streaks of dun-colored mist. +Now--twenty minutes to nine--there is not _one ray_ of sunshine on +the whole valley, or on its mountains, from the Forclaz down to +Cluse. + +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 +_the entire range of the Alps_, from the Moleson to the Saleve, and +all beyond,--snow, crag and hill-side,--were wrapped and buried in +one unbroken gray-brown winding-sheet, of such cloud _as I had +never seen till that day touch an Alpine summit_. + +The wind, from the east, (so that it blew _up_ 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 +Saleve; 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 I saw +the snows clear for the first time, having been, during the whole +past week, on steady watch for them. + +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 _them_." + +[Footnote A: 'THE LOOK OF THE SKY. + +'_To the_ EDITOR _of the_ ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE. + +'SIR,--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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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. + +'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, + + 'AN UNSCIENTIFIC OBSERVER. (R. LESLIE.) + _January 1_.'] + +[Footnote B: "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 _with +which I watched Ingleborough stand without rocking_."] + +[Footnote C: Compare Wordsworth's + + "Oh beauteous birds, methinks ye measure + Your movements to some heavenly tune." + +And again-- + + "While the mists, + Flying and rainy vapors, call out shapes, + And phantoms from the crags and solid earth, + As fast as a musician scatters sounds + Out of an instrument." + +And again-- + + "The Knight had ridden down from Wensley moor, + With the slow motion of a summer cloud."]] + +[Footnote 20: '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. + +Going out of the mouth, that is to say, deliberately and of +purpose. A French postilion's 'Sacr-r-re'--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. + +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. + +But the _deliberate_ blasphemy of science, the assertion of its own +virtue and dignity against the always implied, and often 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. + +Take, for brief general type, the following 92d paragraph of the +'Forms of Water':-- + +"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." + +The debasing beliefs meant being simply those of Homer, David, and +St. John[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. + +In the last 'Fors'[B] 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. + +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 portion 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. + +1. Verse 1.--Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than +a house full of good eating, with strife. + +(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.) + +2. Verse 3.--The fining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold, +but the Lord tries the heart. + +(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.) + +3. Verse 4.--A wicked doer giveth heed to false lips. + +(That means, for _you_, that, intending to live by usury and +swindling, you read Mr. Adam Smith and Mr. Stuart Mill, and other +such political economists.) + +4. Verse 5.--Whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his Maker. + +(Mocketh,--by saying that his poverty is his fault, no less than +his misfortune,--England's favorite theory now-a-days.) + +5. Verse 12.--Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather +than a fool in his folly. + +(Carlyle is often now accused of false scorn in his calling the +passengers over London Bridge, "mostly 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.) + +6. Now listen, for this verse is the question you have mainly to +ask yourselves about your beautiful all-over-England system of +competitive examination:-- + +Verse 16. Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get +wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it? + +(You know perfectly well it isn't the wisdom you want, but the +"station in life,"--and the money!) + +7. Lastly, Verse 7.--Wisdom is before him that hath understanding, +but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth. + +"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. + +And I have here a volume,[C] 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 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 _Medium_, pervading space--"the office of which" +(italics all mine) "appears to be to _degrade_ and ultimately +_extinguish_, all differential motion. It has been well pointed out +by Thomson, that, looked at _in this light_, 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, _and from which everything like life, or motion, or beauty, +will have utterly gone away_." + +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 _light_"? + +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 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. + +It _might_ possibly be of some advantage for you to know what--were +he now living, Orpheus would have thought, or AEschylus, 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. + +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 _could_ 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. + +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.[D] + +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 _this_ I can tell you--and with the authority +of all the masters of thought since time was time,--that, while by +no manner of vivisection you can learn what a _Beast_ is, by only +looking into your own hearts you may know what a _Man_ 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. + +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:-- + + God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause His face to shine + upon us; + That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health among all + nations. + + Oh let the nations rejoice and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge + the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth. + _Then_ shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, + shall bless us. + God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him. + +[Footnote A: With all who died in Faith, not having received the +Promises, nor--according to your modern teachers--ever to receive.] + +[Footnote B: 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.] + +[Footnote C: 'The Conservation of Energy.' King and Co., 1873.] + +[Footnote D: 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. + +"THE RECENT SUNSETS AND VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. + +"SIR,--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. + +Gilbert White writes in the year 1783, in his 109th letter, +published in his 'Natural History of Selborne':-- + +'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.' + +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. + +Besides this submarine eruption, the volcano Skaptar-Joekull, 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.' + +These particulars are gathered from the text-books of Lyell and +Geikie. + +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. + + W. R. ANDREWS, F. G. S. + Teffont Ewyas Rectory, Salisbury, January 8th."]] + +---------------------------------------------------------------------- + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + +Pages 7 & 18: Standardized spelling of "thundercloud." + +Page 20: Standardized quotation marks surrounding poem. + +Page 22: Retained inconsistent hyphenation of "thunder-storm" in +quoted material. + +Pages 26, 58 & 70: Retained inconsistent hyphenation of "billiard-ball". + +Pages 29 & 62: Standardized hyphenation of "now-a-days." + +Pages 31-68: Adjusted placement of footnotes. + +Pages 37 & 59: Standardized spelling of "hill-side." + + + + + +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.txt or 20204.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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