Saint-Cloud

“ Out of the white sea of snow there mount, under the uplift of hot air currents, great towers of cloud, which rise high into the air like the smoke-discharge from a volcano. Huge caves and cloud avenues are formed, wherein dark-blue shadows gather, with occasionally a high mountain top peeping forth like the foundation stone of a gigantic cloud castle. ”

“ In spite of the damage inflicted on the park at the same period its magnificent avenues and ornamental water still make it one of the pleasantest spots in the neighbourhood of Paris. Every year in September, at the time of the pilgrimage of St Cloud, a fair lasting four weeks is held in the park. Within its precincts are situated the national Sèvres porcelain manufactory and the Breteuil pavilion, the seat of the international commission on the metre. St Cloud possesses a modern church in the style of the 12th century with an elegant stone spire ”

“ The traveller who visits France without seeing a fête, such as I have seen this day at St. Cloud, leaves the country unacquainted with that species of knowledge best adapted to show the manners of a people. St. Cloud is a handsome town on the Seine, about five miles below Paris, built in horseshoe form on the undulating hills of this part of the country. These hills are covered with woods, through which villas, cottages, and chateaux emerge, and give life to the scene. ”

“ All is quiet and muffled; no green shocks, nothing new and young jars on the composure of the scene, on the harmony of these full and hollow tones. A somber cloud occupies the whole sky, heaping with fog the cleft of the mountain. ”

“ By what instinctive cleverness, or native vigour of memory, she found her way I cannot tell, but she led me such a walk that night, miles, miles, till I became furious, darkness having soon fallen with only a faint moon obscured by cloud, and a drizzle which haunted the air, she without light climbing and picking her thinly-slippered steps over mounds of débris and loosely-strewn masonry with unfailing agility, I occasionally splashing a foot with horror into one of those little ponds which always marked the Stamboul streets. ”

“ The light breaks through all the varying cloud strata, and colours them with splendour; the glow of the clouds reflected on the snow is caught by the watchful mountain-lover far down the valleys of Inyo and San Joaquin. ”

“ At nine the sky began to get grey in spots. Shortly after a big cloud came sailing up, and I went out to watch it. And sure enough, it had that altogether loose appearance, with those wind-torn, cottony appendages hanging down from its darker upper body which are sure to bring snow. Lower away in the south—a rare thing to come from the south in our climate—there lay a black squall-cloud with a rounded outline, like a big windbag, resembling nothing so much as a fat boy’s face with its cheeks blown out, when he tries to fill a football with the pressure from his lungs. ”

“ The priest of the Cloud People is above even the priests of the Thunder, Lightning, and Rainbow Peoples. The Cloud People have ceremonials, just like those of the Sia. On the altars of the Sia may be seen figures arranged just as the Cloud People sit in their ceremonials. ”

“ When all is warm and clear upon the heights, and the tops of the hills are fervid with the beams of heaven, there still lies a cold white mass of cloud about your feet. It is not yet morning in the valley. There the cloud has been slumbering all night—there it found its home. It also will by and by receive the beam, and then it will arise, enveloping the hill as it ascends; the hill will have a second dawn; the cloud will assume its proud station in the sky; but it will return again to the valley at night.
I am sailing on the lake of Brienz on a day golden with sunbeams. ”

“ As we start up the valley, perhaps, the “white horses” of last night’s rain-storms are still racing down the slopes, and our staircase of mingled grass and rock bears the shadow of the dense cloud overhead—a scene of unrelieved dreariness to those who are unaware of what glories it may be the gateway. Toiling upwards, we reach the swirling fringe of vapour, which closes gradually round us and wraps from us all view of the familiar landscape below. Still on and up we press, till, as we set foot on the higher ridges, the magic of cloud-land begins ”

“ OLD CLOUD'S REST
Inspired by a vast panorama of snow-clad and sun-kissed granite peaks in the Yosemite Valley, of which Cloud's Rest (5912 feet) is the highest.
How proud you rear your haughty crest,
And snow-clad, frown on heights below;
Tho' humbler, they like you are drest
In mantles of eternal snow.
Old Cloud's Rest!
Five thousand feet you climb the skies,
And view your sisters with disdain—
Yet seismic powers that bade you rise
May level you to dust again!
Old Cloud's Rest! ”

“ Low and rolling lands give what no highlands allow. If in these the miraculous surprise of cloud is a perpetual new element of loveliness, it is loveliness itself that unfolds when an interminable land recedes from an illimitable horizon, and, belonging to each and yet remote from either, clouds hang like flowers, or drift like medusæ, or gather mysteriously as white bergs in the pale azure of arctic seas. ”

“ Sometimes a soft white cloud, so pure, so bright, sleeps, amidst open sunshine, nestled like an infant in the bosom of a green mountain. Sometimes the rising upcurling vapour will linger Just above the summit, and seem for a while an incense exhaling from this vast censer. ”

“ A gloom fell upon all the land, and men stood with their eyes upon the strange cloud and a heaviness upon their hearts. They crept into the churches where the trembling people were blessed and shriven by the trembling priests. Outside no bird flew, and there came no rustling from the woods, nor any of the homely sounds of Nature. All was still, and nothing moved, save only the great cloud which rolled up and onward, with fold on fold from the black horizon. ”

“ Viewed from a spot three or four fields away, the copse in the evening seems to be overhung by a long dark cloud like a bar of mist, while the sky is clear and no dew has yet risen. The resemblance to a cloud is so perfect that anyone—not thinking of such things—may for the time be deceived, and wonder why a cloud should descend and rest over that particular spot. Suddenly, the two ends of the extended black bar contract and the middle swoops down in the shape of an inverted cone, much resembling a waterspout, and in a few seconds the cloud pours itself into the trees. ”

“ A cloud had for some days past hung over the habitual gaiety of the cheery little man, a cloud neither black with thunder nor leaden with low-hanging rain, but rather one of those pearly transparencies that flutter about sunset skies, catching and transmuting every glorious glow of crimson and gold and purple. ”

“ Luminous and enormous, there heaved up above the garden trees something that looked at first like [228] a coloured cloud; it was flushed with light such as lies on clouds opposite the sunset, a light at once warm and wan; and it shone like an opaque flame. But as it came closer it grew more and more incredible. It took on solid proportions and perspective, as if a cloud could brush and crush the dark tree-tops. It was something never seen before in the sky; it was a cubist cloud. Men gazing at such a sunset cloudland often imagine they see castles and cities of an almost uncanny completeness. ”

“ But, as I had left my coat in camp for the sake of having my limbs free in climbing, I soon was cold. The wind increased in violence, raising the snow in magnificent drifts that were drawn out in the form of wavering banners blowing in the sun. Toward the end of my stay a succession of small clouds struck against the summit rocks like drifting icebergs, darkening the air as they passed, and producing a chill as definite and sudden as if ice-water had been dashed in my face. This is the kind of cloud in which snow-flowers grow, and I turned and fled. ”

“ In the valley or on the plain you do not commonly notice the shadow of a cloud unless you are in it, but on a mountain top or on a lower elevation in a plane country, or by the sea-side, the shadows of clouds flitting over the landscape are a never-failing source of amusement. It is commonly easy enough to refer a shadow to its cloud, since in one direction its form is perceived with sufficient accuracy. ”

“ The north wind roared, as it rushed down the bay,
And rent the seaward cloud.
Past the old lighthouse, rising white and tall,
Like birds the wind deceives,
Swept from the forest by the surging squall,
Sail the sear autumn leaves. ”

“ The Alps, under the rose [A] of sunset, are exactly of the same [42] 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. ”

“ The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world. I remember one summer day, in the fields, my companion pointed out to me a broad cloud, which might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to the horizon, quite accurately in the form of a cherub as painted over churches, — a round block in the centre, which it was easy to animate with eyes and mouth, supported on either side by wide-stretched symmetrical wings. ”

“ It is usually hidden behind the clouds by day, and is visible in the evening. As one sees it first, in the late afternoon, a white cloud is stretched across its middle height, concealing the mountain all but the very summit which appears like a celestial island floating upon radiant clouds in the high heavens. ”

“ But even the loveliest day is seldom perfected without the ministry of cloud, for clouds are the Genii of the mountains, concealing much, but revealing more, by their presence, and bringing to view the manifold depths and distances that would otherwise be unobserved. You cannot learn the moods and character of a mountain until you have studied its attendant clouds. ”

“ As there are clouds in the natural heaven, so are there in the political; and so there will be in the new heaven of righteousness. A company of people is called by the apostle Paul a cloud – "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us (Heb. 12:1) . The word cloud is used figuratively in various ways, the thoughts conveyed being derived from the natural heavens, in which there are thunder clouds, clouds without rain and clouds with rain. ”

“ We next come to a variety which is anything but a harbinger of good, namely, the long stripes or bands of cirrus which stretch outwards from the margin of the cloud canopy of a cyclonic storm. In some ways these appendages to the great nimbus resemble the strips of cirriform cloud which fringe the summit of a thunder-cloud. They look as if they must have been formed by the blowing away, by a rapid wind, of the top of an uprising column of vapour-charged air. ”

“ The young people looked at her, and were silent. There was a long, quiet pause in which the sounds of the falling nuts and the whispering of the hemlocks closed in about them, and made the day and hour a sacred time. At last Leslie broke the silence.
“Well, Cloudy, suppose we go to church and Christian Endeavor. What can we do the rest of the day? We don’t have to go to church every minute, do we? I don’t really see how it’s going to do me any good. I don’t, indeed.”
Julia Cloud smiled at her wistfully. ”

“ Almost before I could believe my eyes, a cloud had come up from the valley on the other side, and the plains were hidden. What wonderful luck was mine! Had I arrived five minutes later, the cloud would have been over the pass, and I should not have known of its existence. Now that the cloud was there, I began to doubt my memory, and to be uncertain whether it had been more than a blue line of distant vapour that had filled up the opening. ”

“ Now!” said Leslie, sitting up. “That’s just what I thought! That was only for the children of Israel. It hasn’t the leastest bit to do with us. Those were Jews, and they keep it yet, on Saturday.”
“Wait, dear!” Julia Cloud turned the leaves of her Bible rapidly to Corinthians.
“Listen! ‘Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did 145 all drink the same spiritual drink ”

“ It never rains but it pours, they say; and that's one adage, at least, that the railroad men of Big Cloud, and the town itself for that matter, will swear by to this day. There are a few things that Big Cloud remembers vividly and with astounding minuteness for detail, but the night the shops went up tops them all. ”

“ The smallest and most perfectly individualized specimens present a richly modeled cumulous cloud rising above the dark woods, about 11 A.M., swelling with a visible motion straight up into the calm, sunny sky to a height of 12,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, its white, pearly bosses relieved by gray and pale purple shadows in the hollows, and showing outlines as keenly defined as those of the glacier-polished domes. ”

“ Betwixt long shadows o'er the meadow grass,
When from the lower edge of a dark cloud
The sun at eve his blessing head hath bowed;
Whether the moon lift up her shining shield,
High on the peak of a cloud-hill revealed;
Or crescent, low, wandering sun-dazed away,
Unconscious of her own star-mingled ray,
Her still face seeming more to think than see,
She makes the pale world lie in dreams of thee. ”