Hurricane

“ Above them an ebon cloud was rived with lightning, and from the gash a blinding torrent fell, hiding sea and sky, battering the deck and hissing in the scuppers, striving to flatten the rearing waves that ran and leaped uncontrolled as the hurricane reached its height. ”

“ Now, as if all the demons of winds had let loose their cavernous lungs from the 167 four quarters of the earth, and like the shocks of artillery, volley upon volley, came the hurricane. The sea became one boiling, seething, hissing surface of foam, pressed and flattened by the weight of the tempest, which laid the black rocks bare on the ledge, and drove the water into both mouths of the inlet, until, with a crashing shock, it met in the basin, and broke over and over the cove, and high up the wall of rocks on the other side. ”

“ Sometimes moaning, sometimes whistling, the gusts of the hurricane drove the water and the travellers before it, while the rain poured from the sky to the earth, and wherever it struck splashed upward, making little whirlpools and swiftly breaking bubbles. ”

“ Like that little cloud which, no bigger than a man's hand, in a seemingly windless sky, is seen weirdly flying across the heavens, and known by mariners to forebode the gathering of the hurricane, there were sudden outbreaks and bread-riots, from which those who can read signs augured the brewing tempest. ”

“ They come down on the land with such whirling and driving gusts, such furious and continuous tempests, such whistlings and roarings of the wind, and a sky so murky and threatening, that no hurricane at sea can be more terrific. ”

“ A hurricane is like the passage of demons; it is the row the tempest-fiends make in galloping and rolling head-over-heels over our bone-boxes. In the cloud this one has a tail, that one has horns, another a flame for a tongue, another claws to its wings, another a lord chancellor's paunch, another an academician's pate: each new gust is a fresh demon. ”

“ For no one, who has not witnessed it, can form even a remote idea of an American hurricane, which twists trees like wisps of straw, fires forests, levels mountains, drives streams from their bed, and in a few hours convulses the surface of the soil. ”

“ A hurricane blows clouds of white snowy dust across the desert, resembling the smoke of bonfires, roaring and raving through the pines on the mountain-top, filling the air with snow and broken branches, and piling it in huge drifts against the trees. ”

“ In the hurricane which one meets with in southern latitudes, most of us have probably looked in vain for the waves which have been described to be “mountain high;” but, though the outline has been exaggerated, is there not a terror in the filling in of the picture which no human artist can delineate? and in the raging of the tempest—in the darkness which the lightning makes visible—who is there among us that has not fancied he has caught a shadow of the wrath, and a momentary glimmering of the mercy, of the Almighty? ”

“ The hurricane runs in front, heaving out the rocks with force. At once with a battle shout, and armed with the courage of despair, valiantly move the new bodies of waves. They will fall, or they will destroy this dam, or the sea will be their tomb! ”

“ Before this, and as the storm arose, my father and mother stood at the bow of the boat, and happily for me I had not dismounted, but pushing to a place beside them, awaited, childlike, the coming shore. When the hurricane struck us I remember to have laughed, for storms have ever had an attraction for me, and to this day nothing gives me greater pleasure than to listen to the wind as it sweeps through the trees or spends its strength on whatever object impedes its course. ”

“ The wildest cries of agony and fear arose from below, where row beyond row of the thickly crowded streets swayed backwards and forwards, like the agitated waves of the ocean, when the first blast of the hurricane is felt ”

“ With the cold blasts coming now and again with the force of a perfect hurricane, we crawled on our hands and knees along the steeps of the lower end, and cut footsteps with our tomahawks in the snow and ice, which spread itself like a white sheet over the precipitous inclines over which we had to make our way before we could reach the base of the rocky mass. ”

“ The hurricane itself, and the weight of the sea that it hurls, cannot shake the heavy stone; but wood will float on the water, leaves yield to the air; I, still more trifling, fix my feet nowhere upon the earth, and the departing light draws me with it. ”

“ When it flies, wingless, through the air, the winds howl, torrents of rain descend, houses are unroofed, the firmament is filled with a din, and whatever lies along its route is swept away with a roar in the hurricane created by the speed of its passage. ”

“ Their power is that of an enduring calm no storms can disturb—and is often felt to be more majestical, the more furious are the storms. As the tempest-driven clouds are franticly hurrying to and fro, how serene the summits in the sky! Or if they be hidden, how peaceful the glimpses of some great mountain's breast! They disregard the hurricane that goes crashing through their old woods; the cloud-thunder disturbs not them any more than that of their own cataracts, and the lightnings play for their pastime. ”

“ None the less, such a hurricane is in itself a mere accident, a mere passing incident, a mere swirl of air, coming into being to adjust a lost balance, and vanishing so soon as its work is done. We have seen tiny swirls of air dancing along the road, on a windy day, sweeping up bits of straw or dried leaves into their embrace. ”

“ When the Hurricane strode away, I got up quietly and departed, but at that hour of the next night I came up cautiously to the same spot. There I found the huge grey form of the Hurricane alone, with his head bowed in his hands, weeping; for the Earthquake sleeps long and heavily in the abysses, and he would not wake. ”

“ I had heard of hurricanes in the woods, and surmised that one was at hand. It soon came crashing its way; the forest writhing, and twisting, and groaning before it. The hurricane did not extend far on either side, but in a manner plowed a furrow through the woodland; snapping off or uprooting trees that had stood for centuries, and filling the air with whirling branches. I was directly in its course, and took my stand behind an immense poplar, six feet in diameter. It bore for a time the full fury of the blast, but at length began to yield. ”

“ And now the windows of heaven were opened, and the rain, mingled with the spray caught up by the hurricane, was dashed and hurled upon the forlorn youth, who still lay where he had been first thrown down. ”

“ Travelling at our present hurricane pace, we shall undoubtedly lift up and overturn the machine and what it is drawing. But shall we not be crushed ourselves? A few paces still intervene between us and our foe, and we give vent to a shout of terror. ”

“ Afield thou shalt fall, on sea thou shalt be tossed, an eternal tempest shall attend the steps of thy wandering, nor shall frost-bind ever quit thy sails; nor shall thy roof-tree roof thee, but if thou seekest it, it shall fall smitten by the hurricane ”

“ The tops of the lofty trees rustle ominously, though not a breath of air agitates them; a hollow whistling in the high regions of the atmosphere comes as a warning from the black floating vapour; midnight darkness envelops the ancient forests, which soon after groan and creak with the blast of the hurricane. ”

“ We felt as people do during the lull of a hurricane, when they know it will come back with tenfold force. Presently we heard the savages crying out louder than ever, and directly afterwards thin wreaths of smoke began to ascend through the flooring. ”

“ Whether or not it was their intention to attack, I cannot pretend to say, because it was noon before they showed themselves; and soon after, when something like a movement could be discerned in their ranks, the sky grew suddenly dark, and the most tremendous hurricane ever remembered by the oldest inhabitant in the place came on. Of the prodigious force of the wind it is impossible for one who was not an eye-witness to its effects to form a conception. ”

“ CHAPTER IX WE LOOK OUT FOR THE SOUTHERN CROSS
The wind blew a hurricane all that night, and was still a full gale when dawn broke. To say that no man among us slept is to put down a very obvious thing. The roaring of the breakers on the reefs below us, the showers of stones which the heights rained down, the dreadful noises like wild human voices in the hills, drove sleep far from any man's eyes. And more than that, there was the ship to think of. ”

“ The freshet, which is irresistible in its might, subsides in violence, and permits the flowers to grow up again on the fertile banks, and be imaged in the tranquil stream. The wildest hurricane which bears upward the oak, abates into the musical winds. But here the fury is unceasing; there is only an awful, unnatural calm upon the brink of the precipice. ”

“ At times, so ominous, and threatening would be the aspect of the heavens, with its armies of black clouds in battle-array, its forked lightning, and crashing thunder, the perfect stillness of the atmosphere, and the rapid flight of scared water-fowl, that a hurricane would seem imminent, until we would cast our eyes upon the barometer, standing unmoved, at near the marking of thirty inches, amid all the signs, and portents around it. ”

“ One could only sit and endure, protecting eyes, mouth and hair from the flying grit by means of a motor veil, and longing for rain till the hurricane passed and died away, leaving us very miserable and uncomfortable—and as dry as before! ”

“ Far above the wind careered in a narrow current, which did not touch the surface of the sea but only bore onward the clouds. The agitation of the sky above contrasted with the stillness below made the latter not consoling but rather fearful, for this could be none other than that treacherous stillness which precedes the sudden outburst of the hurricane. ”

“ A roaring and crackling sound is heard like the rushing of the hurricane; the flame, which, in general, rises to the height of about twenty feet, is seen sinking and darting upward in spires precisely as the waves dash against each other, and as the spray flies up into the air ”

“ Thus we lived without any incident occurring worth relating—when one day the appearance of the atmosphere indicated a storm, and a very violent hurricane, attended with peals of thunder and lurid flashes of lightning, lasted during the whole of the day and evening. The wind tore up the trees by the roots, blew down our outhouses, made terrible havoc in our garden, and threatened to tumble our hut over our heads. ”

“ At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
Of the wide reaches of the upper world
There on the instant to have sprung apart,
Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
And, there enclosed, ever more and more
Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom. ”

“ Their winds blow with a fierceness never approached by the stiffest Trade. A hurricane, tearing over Earth’s surface at the rate of one hundred and twenty miles an hour, reduces the most muscular of men to helplessness. ”

“ The land wind sighed and murmured; the sea-breeze wafted its rustling influence over the waves; the long swells broke over the ledge; the inlet flowed pure and limpid; and the gulls and sea-mews floated gracefully over the reef, as if a hurricane had never poured its baneful wrath upon it or the lonely island.
Day by day and week by week, the man and boy, getting each hour stronger and better, worked and worked. He with his great arms hewing and sawing, and the child attending upon him like a shadow. ”

“ We get some idea that it exists as a substance when we see dead leaves caught up in it and whirled about; and, more impressively, when in the violence of the hurricane it seizes upon a body of great size 21 and weight, like the roof of a house, and whisks it away as though it were a feather, at a speed exceeding that of the fastest railroad train. ”

“ On the morning of the 10th the hurricane began, and by the afternoon the Albemarle frigate and all the merchantmen in the bay parted from their anchors and drove to sea. By night the fury of the tempest had reached its utmost height, and dreadful were the consequences. It is impossible to describe the scenes of horror and distress occurring on every side. ”

“ Add to these the storm-king:—traversing the air, he thrusts in the whirlwind or sends forth the cyclone, the tornado, and the hurricane to stir up and agitate, to mix and mingle the whole in one homogeneous mass. By this perpetual stirring up, this continual agitation, motion, mixing, and circulation, the airy covering of the globe is kept in that state which the well-being of the organic world requires. ”

“ During this flood-time we often heard the dull roar of the ocean; the wind blew straight from it with the force almost of a hurricane. The house shook in the fierce gusts; great branches of the alders snapped off and came tumbling down in the yard. Occasionally a big tree, uprooted by wind and water, fell with a tremendous crash. ”

“ The wind was blowing a fearful hurricane, and the rain was falling heavily, beating into the faces of the foremost, and almost taking away the breath of the older and weaker of the party. As they proceeded, others came out of their houses and joined them,—women as well as men. ”

“ No matter what may be the convulsions to which the atmosphere is subjected, nor how violent its effects in sound and motion upon the agitated surface of the earth, not the slightest sensation of either can be detected by the individual who is floating in its currents. The most violent storm, the most outrageous hurricane, pass equally unheeded and unfelt ”