The Clouds

“ The cloud veils an angry sun, or, more terribly, lets fly an angry ray, suddenly bright upon tree and tower, with iron-grey storm for a background. Or when anger had but threatened, the cloud reveals him, gentle beyond hope. It makes peace, constantly, just before sunset.
It is in the confidence of the winds, and wears their colours. There is a heavenly game, on south-west wind days, when the clouds are bowled by a breeze from behind the evening. They are round and brilliant, and come leaping up from the horizon for hours. This is a frolic and haphazard sky. ”

“ The mere power of familiarity with the clouds, of walking with them and above them, alters and renders clear our whole conception of the baseless architecture of the sky; and for the beauty of it, there is more in a single wreath of early cloud, pacing its way up an avenue of pines, or pausing among the points of their fringes, than in all the white heaps that fill the arched sky of the plains from one horizon to the other. And of the nobler cloud manifestations,—the breaking of their troublous seas against the crags, their black spray sparkling with lightning ”

“ Clouds of a peculiar aspect with a slow, crawling gait gather and grow in the azure, throwing out satiny fringes, and becoming gradually darker until every lake-like rift and opening is closed and the whole bent firmament is obscured in equal structureless gloom. Then comes the snow, for the clouds are ripe, the meadows of the sky are in bloom, and shed their radiant blossoms like an orchard in the spring. ”

“ The clouds which gather here in this valley, at one time completely hiding the immense rocks, and absorbing them in a waste, impenetrable gloom, or at another letting a part of them be seen, like huge spectres, give to the people a cast of melancholy. In the midst of such natural phenomena, the people are full of presentiments and forebodings. Clouds, a phenomenon remarkable to every man from his youth up, are in the flat countries generally looked upon at most as something foreign, something super-terrestrial. ”

“ Beyond, the wooded mountains rose in the densities of unbroken primeval wilderness, with irregular summit-lines, with graduating tones from bronze-green to blue-gray, with a solemnity that even the sunshine did not abate. Still further, the Great Smoky, veiled with mist and vague with distance, stood high against the sky,—so high that but for the familiar changeless outline it must have seemed the fiction of the clouds. ”

“ What could a man learn by watching the clouds? These objects which go over our heads unobserved are vast and indefinite. Those clouds which have the most distinct and interesting outlines are commonly below the zenith, somewhat low in the heavens, seen on one side. They are among the most glorious objects in Nature. A sky without clouds is a meadow without flowers, a sea without sails. ”

“ It is not clear whether the light of the cloud means the lightning again or the varied hues which make an Oriental sunset glorious in purple and gold. But the balancings of the clouds must be that singular power which the atmosphere has of sustaining vast quantities of watery vapour—either miles above the earth's surface where the filmy cirrhus floats, dazzling white against the blue sky, or lower down where the rain-cloud trails along the hill-tops. ”

“ What, indeed, can be more striking than the aërial landscapes of fine weather, in which, by an easy fancy, we can trace trees and towers, magnificent ruins and glaciers, natural bridges and palaces, all dashed with torrents of light or frowning in shadow, glowing like burnished silver, glittering in a golden light, or melting into the most enchanting hues? But with all this beauty the eye is seldom capable of judging correctly of the proper size and forms and motions of clouds. The same cloud which to one observer may be glowing with light, to another may be enveloped in shadow. ”

“ The firmament between the clouds faded from a blood-red through orange and daffodil into an exquisite green, which spread like a sea of glory through which those magnificent argosies slowly sailed. Some of the clouds were drawn in straight chords across the arch of heaven, these being doubtless the sections of layers of cloud whose horizontal dimensions were hidden from us. The cumuli around and near the sun himself could not be gazed upon, until, as the day declined, they gradually lost their effulgence and became tolerable to the eyes. ”

“ The great clouds on the horizon look like mountains tipped with gold and fiery red. One of these sunsets was a wonderful sight. The sun went down into the sea between two enormous clouds—the only ones to be seen—and they blazed with the brilliant colours I have described, which were constantly changing, until the clouds stood out in dark relief against the still delicately-tinted sky. I got up frequently to see the sun rise, but in the tropics it is not nearly so fine at its rising as at its setting.
A ship was announced as being in sight, with a signal flying to speak with us. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We take a last view of our surroundings, note the direction we should follow, and try to fix details in our memories, for sight will soon be impossible. Then the clouds themselves are upon us—a puff of mist first, followed by the dense fog. A crepitating sound arises around us; it is the pattering of hard particles of snow on the ground. ”

“ All above is beautiful, and the clouds themselves are like celestial mountains; but the eye forsakes them, though it sees them still, and more quietly now it moves along the pageantry below that endures for ever—till chained on a sudden by that range of cliffs. 'Tis along them that the giant shadows are stalking—but now they have passed by—and the long line of precipice seems to come forward in the light. ”

“ The clouds which have gathered around us are thick and dark; sometimes they have seemed impenetrable; but again they separate, we see the blue sky, the stars come out in all their glory, and even the sun pours his intense rays through the intervals of the storm. ”

“ 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, composed of clusters or 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. ”

“ The slowness of our ground speed, due to the fierce wind, allows me plenty of time to admire the strangely beautiful surroundings. Above is the inverted bowl of blue, bright for the most part, but duller towards the horizon-rim. The sun pours down a vivid light, which spreads quicksilver iridescence over the cloud-tops. Below is the cloud-scape, fantastic and far-stretching. The shadow of our machine is surrounded by a halo of sunshine as it darts along the irregular white surface. The clouds dip, climb, twist, and flatten into every conceivable shape. ”

“ Cloud-scenery, especially when sketched against big mountains, has the two qualities of expressing immense power and exceeding delicacy: power, by means of sheer size, depth and grandeur of form; delicacy, by the silken tracery of the torn edges that float away into the viewless air. Cloud-scenery touches all notes in the scale, runs through the entire gamut of the soul’s emotions. The mind wanders delightlully beyond the confines of sense into the region of un-realities ”

“ Even here the cloud is not so victorious as when it towers above some little landscape of rather paltry interest—a conventional river heavy with water, gardens with their little evergreens, walks, and shrubberies; and thick trees impervious to the light, touched, as the novelists always have it, with “autumn tints.” High over these rises, in the enormous scale of the scenery of clouds, what no man expected—an heroic sky. Few of the things that were ever done upon earth are great enough to be done under such a heaven. ”

“ They are beautiful because they are actual clouds of heaven, and show that the artist knew the infinite life of clouds and the dramatic energy of their coming and going, eventful with shadow and light, and sometimes with tears and dreary tragedies of storm, — that he has seen what wreathed smiles they have for sunshine, what mild rebuffs for boisterous winds, — seen their coquetries of flying and waiting, their coy advances, their wiles of hiding and peering forth with bright looks from under hoods of gray. ”

“ The clouds assume all sorts of fantastic shapes, and appear more solid and clearly defined than I have ever seen before. Towards evening they seem to float in colour—purple, pink, red, and yellow alternately—while the sky near the setting sun seems of a beautiful green, gradually melting into the blue sky above. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But it is fine to see how quickly they come to life and grow radiant and communicative as soon as a band of white clouds come floating by. As if shouting for joy, they seem to spring up to meet them in hearty salutation, eager to touch them and beg their blessings. It is just in the midst of these dull midday hours that the canon clouds are born. ”

“ Great, white, billowy, fair-weather clouds rolled up in open order before the fresh west wind, and the shadows of them trailed across the face of the earth, moving swiftly, sharply defined, sweeping patches of shade against the green and gold of a clean-washed, sunny summer world. ”

“ Fantasy, thus rooted in reality, is surely an exercise of the imagination that produces useful, not harmful, results. To be “in the clouds” among the mountains is an experience of value, but to be among the mountains, and above the clouds, comes to many as almost an entirely new revelation. The whole strange world of dreams slides across the frontier into waking life. The result is a kind of exquisite bewilderment.
The immensity of cloud-scenery has already been noticed. ”

“ Do not the calmest and brightest days of autumn show clouds, that drift their ragged edges over the golden disk, and bear down swift with their weight of vapors, until the sun's whole surface is shrouded; and you can see no shadow of tree or flower upon the land, because of the greater and gulping shadow of the cloud? ”

“ A sudden gleam of sunlight, partially paled by a thin cloud, called our attention upward, when to our great relief several areas of blue sky appeared, the clouds were rising and breaking up, and there was every prospect of a change for the better. ”

“ But exquisitely lovely as is the blue arch of the midday sky, with its inexhaustible variety of clouds, "there is yet a light which the eye invariably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the declining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like watch-fires in the green sky of the horizon." ”

“ Yet now, as I arise, a cloud has come across him, and makes everything gently sombre in an instant. Many clouds, voluminous and heavy, are scattered about the sky, like the shattered ruins of a dreamer's Utopia ”

“ But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer. ”

“ Fantastic formation of clouds was in this flaring light--forms which seemed to wrestle and struggle with each other, born of the storm, and yet that bank of cloud stood motionless at the horizon--and just as motionless stood the man, whose dark features showed now an ashy paleness in the glare of the lightning. ”

“ It was a murky confusion—here and there blotted with a colour like the colour of the smoke from damp fuel—of flying clouds, tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened. ”

“ 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. ”