When the earth convulsed: The existential philosophy of extreme weather

“ Anybody who ventured in the open was likely to be blown off his feet and that was exceedingly dangerous, for the sea was close by, and now and then the roof of a quonset went off and was carried dangerously across the island and out to sea. Winds of hurricane force blew the water from the lagoon which began engulfing the 184 south and east parts of the island. The wind reached a steady velocity of 120 miles an hour, with gusts up to 142 at the height of the storm. ”

“ Guns firing from one Ship or other all the Night for help, tho' 'twas impossible to assist each other, the Sea was so high, and the Darkness of the Night such, that we could not see where any one was, but by the Flashes of the Guns; when day light appear'd, it was a dismal sight to behold the Ships driving up and down one foul of another, without Masts, some sunk, and others upon the Rocks, the Wind blowing so hard, with Thunder, Lightning and Rain, that on the Deck a Man could not stand without holding. ”

“ Dwellers in temperate lands can form no conception of the awful grandeur of a tropical tempest, the fury of the wind, the vivid lightning that spatters the sky and runs in chains and linked patterns across its darkness, the awful sound of the crashing thunder that seems to shake [Pg 209] the world. But, terrifying at first, they became actually wearisome from their frequency. When a thunderstorm has raged about one's house for eighteen hours, circling round the hills and returning again and again, one gets simply bored with it—there is no other expression to describe the feeling. ”

“ The problem of life seemed too voluminous for the narrow limits of human speech, and by common consent it was abandoned to the great sea that had from the beginning enfolded it in its immense grip; to the sea that knew all, and would in time infallibly unveil to each the wisdom hidden in all the errors, the certitude that lurks in doubts, the realm of safety and peace beyond the frontiers of sorrow and fear. ”

“ When a storm of full strong winds cometh in to the clouds, and the whirling wind and the storm increaseth, and seeketh out passage: it cleaveth and breaketh the cloud, and falleth out with a great rese and strong, and all to breaketh the parts of the cloud, and so it cometh to the ears of men and of beasts with horrible and dreadful breaking and noise. ”

“ I must confess I cannot help thinking that the Earth it self suffer'd some Convulsion; and that for this Reason, because several Springs, for the space of 48 Hours afterwards, were very 167muddy, which were never known to be so by any Storm of Wind or Rain before: nor indeed is it possible, they lying so low, could be affected by any thing less than a Concussion of the Earth it self. ”

“ But the crust of the earth also has had its storms, to which the tempests of the sea are as nothing,—which have thrown up mountain waves twenty thousand feet high, and fixed them where they stand, perpetual memorials of the convulsions that upheaved them. Conceive an ocean wave that should roll up for twenty thousand feet, and be petrified at its greatest height: the mountains are but the gigantic waves raised on the surface of the land by the geological tempests of past times. ”

“ Sinking and sinking in his self-insufficiency, he now listened to the wind howling round the house, the storm that had lasted for days, and he seemed to hear voices that came moaning up over the wide heath, as though the wind were alive, as though the storm were a soul, as though it concealed weeping souls, complaining souls, and were their one manifestation: souls blowing up again and again, souls which now, in the night, tapped with soul-fingers at the trembling panes. ”

“ He glanced at Causleen—at the fire she had replenished—at grey, old Storm, nosing his knee in quiet distress.
“How nightmare plays the devil with a man,” he laughed. “I fancied I was shovelling snow.”
He dozed again, and Causleen watched beside him. She had taunted him; but it seemed there was one man at least in Logie-side. And he might have died while going her errand.
The night wore on. Storm was asleep, too, but she sat wakeful, and listened to the dying tempest. The window of the hut was not blurred by snowflakes now. The wind no longer roared in glee ”

“ Earth’s vain distinctions! When the storm beats loud,
When the strong towers are tottering to their base,
And the streets rock,—who mingle in the crowd?
—Peasant and chief, the lowly and the proud,
Are in that throng! Yes, life hath many an hour
Which makes us kindred, by one chast’ning bow’d,
And feeling but, as from the storm we cower,
What shrinking weakness feels before unbounded power! LIV.
Yet then that Power, whose dwelling is on high,
Its loftiest marvels doth reveal, and speak,
In the deep human heart more gloriously,
Than in the bursting thunder! ”

“ I mean the theory, that, as Professor James himself expresses it, “the whole universe of material things — the furniture of earth and choir of heaven — should turn out to be a mere surface-veil of phenomena, hiding and keeping back the world of genuine realities; . . . the whole world of natural experience, as we get it, to be but a time-mask, shattering or refracting the one infinite Thought which is the sole reality of those millions of finite streams of consciousness known to us as our private selves.” ”

“ Jerome says, the Heavens will be overcast with heavy clouds, and a dreadful tempest will arise.
The force of the wind will carry the inhabitants of the earth off their feet, and whirl them aloft in the air; trees will be uprooted, houses unroofed. ”

“ My uncle and I looked at one another with wild and haggard eyes; we clung convulsively to the stump of the mast, which, at the moment when the catastrophe took place, had snapped short off. We turned our backs as much as possible to the wind, in order not to be stifled by a rapidity of motion which nothing human could face and live. ”

“ And accordingly my People found it when they came to wash the afore-mentioned lower Windows of my House: but as to the upper Windows, where the Rain had beat against them, there was little or no Salt to be found sticking upon that Glass.
Now, if we consider, what a quantity of Sea-water is spread all over the Country by such a terrible Storm, and consequently, how greatly impregnated the Air is with the same; we ought not to 113wonder, that such a quantity of Water, being moved with so great a force, should do so much mischief to Chimneys, tops of Houses, &c. ”

“ The Houses looked like Skeletons, and an universal Air of Horror seem'd to sit on the Countenances of the People; all Business seem'd to be laid aside for the Time, and People were generally intent upon getting Help to repair their Habitations.
It pleased God so to direct things, that there fell no Rain in any considerable Quantity, except what fell the same Night or the ensuing Day, for near Three Weeks after the Storm, though it was a Time of the Year that is generally dripping. ”

“ Vines were torn from their fastenings; flower-beds destroyed; choice shrubbery, tended with care for years, shorn of its beauty. Even the solid earth had been invaded by floods of water, which ploughed deep furrows along its surface. And, saddest of all, two human lives had gone out while the mad tempest raged in uncontrollable fury.
As the lover and maiden stood looking at the signs of violence so thickly scattered around, the former said, in a cheerful tone--
"For all his wild, desolating power, the tempest is vassal to the sun and dew. ”

“ I wish I could give as good an Account of the Ships then at Anchor in our Road, the whole Fleet consisted of about an hundred Sail, fifty whereof were wanting after the Storm. The Wrecks of four are to be seen in the Road at low Water their Men all lost, three more were sunk near the Spurn, all the Men but one saved, six or seven were driven ashoar, and got off again with little or no damage. A small Hoy, not having a Man on Board, was taken at Sea, by a Merchant Ship, what became of the rest, we are yet to learn. ”

“ Each ocean foams with maddened tide
The shrinking hills in fear subside.
Trembles the earth with feverous throe
The wind in fitful tempest blows.
No cure we see with troubled eyes:
And atheist brood on earth may rise. ”

“ THE TERRORS OF THE NIGHT The storm had risen, the low whispering of the wind, the distant rumbles of the thunder, gathering unheeded, burst suddenly into a tempest.
Its very fury spoke it brief, yet many cowered and shrank before it, as if its termination must be the termination of the world. ”

“ "Look too on this poor planet of ours,
Torn by the storms of mysterious powers,
Evil contending with good from its birth,
Wrenching in battle the heartstrings of earth,—
Ah! what infinities circle us here,
Strangeness and wonderment swathing the sphere! ”

“ Then into limits could I bind my woes.
When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threatening the welkin with his big-swol’n face?
And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?
I am the sea. Hark how her sighs doth flow!
She is the weeping welkin, I the earth. ”

“ How profoundly we despise the glory of the world, and how deeply regret that our eyes were ever dazzled by its radiance! Come, ye people, come now—or, rather, ye princes and lords, ye judges of the earth, and ye who open to man the portals of heaven; and more than all others, ye princes and princesses, nobles descended from a long line of kings, lights of France, but to-day in gloom, and covered with your grief as with a cloud—come and see how little remains of a birth so august, a grandeur so high, a glory so dazzling! ”

“ In this Search after Causes, the Philosopher, tho' he may at the same Time be a very good Christian, cares not at all to meddle with his Maker: the Reason is plain; We may at any time resolve all things into Infinite Power, and we do allow that the Finger of Infinite is the First Mighty Cause of Nature her self: but the Treasury of Immediate Cause is generally committed to Nature; and if at any Time we are driven to look beyond her, 'tis because we are out of the way: 'tis not because it is not in her, but because we cannot find it. ”

“ A heavy rainfall results from the precipitation of only a small percentage of the water contained in the fresh supplies of air brought by the wind; if all moisture were abstracted from the atmosphere it could only affect the barometer throughout the equatorial regions by 2·8/13·6 inches, or about two-tenths of an inch, while at the polar regions the diminution would be much less than one-tenth. Evidently, therefore, it is idle to argue that the fall of pressure in an extensive storm is to be considered as the simple result of the condensation of the vapour into rain. ”

“ If the winds of heaven and the waves of the sea, if the diseases of the sick and the terrors of death, if the graves of the dead and the gates of hades, were obedient to the mandate of Jesus Christ, and, if the veil of the temple was rent in twain, the rocks were sundered, the earth trembled and the sun was veiled in darkness when the Lord of glory died—should not the human heart always be filled, when his name is mentioned? ”

“ Thou Who preparest the mountains by Thy strength, being girded with power: * Who troublest the depths of the sea, the noise of its waves.
The Gentiles shall be troubled, and they that dwell in the uttermost borders shall be afraid at Thy signs: * Thou shalt make the outgoings of the morning and of the evening to be joyful.
Thou hast visited the earth, and hast plentifully watered it; * Thou hast many ways enriched it. ”

“ Within these limits there is complete compatibility of science with religion, and forever will be. Let science say its untrammelled say upon man the physical, the physiological, or the experimentally psychological; upon man the body and man the sensory consciousness, — these are all doubtless under the law of evolution issuing from man the Rational Soul. But let not science contrive its own destruction by venturing to lay profane hands, vain for explanation, on that sacred human nature which is its very spring and authorising source. ”

“ Or, to state the case inversely, the potential reach of normal human consciousness is the very thing meant by universality: intelligence as such is simply the fulfilment of human intelligence. The attempt to take the universe as beyond or apart from or plus consciousness has sublated itself into bringing the universe wholly within consciousness and coincident with it; and the ancient saying, Man the measure of all things, comes round again, but in a new and pregnant sense — a sense which in the last resort gets its meaning from the intrinsic harmony of human with divine cognition. ”