Pillar of cloud

“ High up in the heavens, blotting out the stars, was a dense, black cloud, which seemed to be supported on a pillar or fountain of fire, and from the cloud were raining down masses of matter white-hot, red-hot. ”

“ Sometimes they meet, and the whole object is completed; at others, they do not, and the water falls back into the ocean with great disturbance. I have watched them trying again and again to meet: sometimes the wind drives the cloud-pillar to an acute angle, and prevents the junction; at others, vain efforts, as vainly repeated, are made by sea and cloud. ”

“ The night was calm and rainless, to be sure, but a heavy impenetrable mass of dark grey clouds, so low as to envelop all the mountain summits around, obscured the vault from horizon to horizon, from sunset to sunrise, so that not a single meteor could be seen by the keenest eye, even if above that pall of cloud the display had been the most brilliant and splendid conceivable. ”

“ And while thus all without is unreal, it is also fleeting as the shadows of the flying clouds; and when God awakes, it disappears as they before the noonlight that clears the heavens. All things that are, are on condition of perpetual flux and change. The cloud-rack has the likeness of bastions and towers, but they are mist, not granite, and the wind is every moment sweeping away their outlines, till the phantom fortress topples into red ruin while we gaze. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Blinding glare would show a sky of rent, fierce, tumultuous clouds in layer after layer. If only he could more easily keep his rain-blinded eyes open, to see those incredible effects of the cloud-masses when the lightning tore them apart! Such marvels of shapes and depths and unearthly colors in them! And also such tremendous gradations of sound in the rolling thunder as it reverberated from every side at once, now near, now far, crashing against the cliffs above, and tumbling its gigantic echoes back on his own head. Mad revelry of the storm-gods! ”

“ At second glance they did not really resemble any cloud forms we had ever seen; for about them there was a baffling suggestion of weight and solidity. Moving sluggishly into the heavens above the pass, they preserved their original contours and their separateness. They seemed to swell and tower, coming toward us on the blue air from which, as yet, no lightest stirring of wind had reached us. Floating thus, they maintained the rectitude of massive columns or of giants marching on a broad plain. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ Thick clouds, shaped like piles of cannon balls, have slowly peered up from behind the horizon, and rolled themselves hither and thither, spreading and gathering as they went. Now and then a thunder-whisper is heard, so faint, that if we were conversing, we should not notice it; and an occasional flash of lightning seems, in the sun's glare, like the waving of a curtain by the fitful breeze that begins to touch the pool here and there. The cloud masses gather fresh and fresh accession as they move on, like revolutionary armies marching up to battle. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even as I gazed, the rising clouds began to encroach on the western firmament, until only a narrow speck of sky, through which the declining sun shone out with a ghastly lustre was seen in that quarter of the horizon. In a moment more the massy curtain of cloud obscured even this opening, and nothing was seen above or around us but the wild and ominous darkness, which, reflected from the unruffled surface of the deep, and struggling with the few faint gleams of light that yet remained, wrapt everything in its own sepulchral gloom. ”

“ But since mid-day the clouds had dispersed, the sun was free in a clear sky, the thunder was only muttering at a single point, rolling slowly through the depths of a heavy cloud which, seeming to unite earth and heaven, blended with the dust of the fields, and was furrowed by pale zig-zags of distant lightning. ”

“ We have often witnessed the formation of a cloud in a serene sky. A hazy point, barely perceptible—a little wreath of mist—increases in volume, and becomes darker and denser, until it obscures a large portion of the heavens. It throws itself into fantastic shapes, it gathers a glory from the sun, is borne onward by the wind, and, perhaps, as it gradually came, so it gradually disappears, melting away in the untroubled air. ”

“ 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 beautiful clouds behind which the sun disappears at its setting are not richer. What brilliant tints, what soft suppleness! They mount higher and higher. Now they roll up like a shining white band around the top of the mountain, and hide the view of the plain from us. Only the point where we are projects above the cloud-curtain, like an islet above the sea. At last this point is invaded, we are in the bosom of the clouds. Warm tints, soft outlines, striking views—all have disappeared. It is now only a dark fog that saturates with moisture and makes us feel depressed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we again went on deck the sky presented a really magnificent spectacle, the vast masses of heavy, electrically-charged cloud being piled one above the other in a fashion that resembled, to me, nothing so much as a chaos of titanic rocks of every conceivable shape and colour, the forms and hues of the clouds being rendered distinctly visible by the incessant play of the sheet-lightning among their masses. ”

“ And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight—blotting out the beautiful Aurora—till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. ”

“ Yon blue hill Looks fleeting as the vapors which distill Their dews upon its summit, while the free And far-off clouds, now solid, dark, and still, An aspect wear of calm eternity. Each seems the other, as our fancies will— The cloud a mount, the mount a cloud, and we Gaze doubtfully. So everywhere on earth, This foothold where we stand with slipping feet, The unsubstantial and substantial meet, And we are fooled until made wise by Time. ”

“ Shortly it becomes lighter, the light gradually increasing, till it is succeeded by a flood of light, at first striking, then dazzling, and we pass out of the dense cloud to where the clouds open out in bold and fantastic shapes, showing us light and shadow, and spectral scenes, with prismatic embellishments, disporting themselves around us in wild grandeur, till at length we break out into brilliant sunshine, and the clouds roll away in a perfect sea of vapour, obscuring the earth entirely ”

“ The people who dwelt upon the upper parts of the mountain not being able to fly fast enough, a great part of the cloud, almost three leagues in circumference, detached itself under them, and was seen at a distance rising and falling like the waves of the sea, and emitting globes of fire so luminous, that the night became as clear as day. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From all quarters were gathering storms of the blackest description, each cloud emitting lightning without intermission, and as the sun touched the horizon upon the only clear point, it illumined like a fire the pitch-black clouds, producing the most extraordinary effect of vivid colouring, combined with lightning, and a rainbow. ”

“ 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 ”

“ What thins the cloud? As I have said, the light which the cloud obscures, shining on the upper surface of it, dissipates it layer by layer till it gets down at last to the lowermost, and then rends a gap in it, and sends the shaft of the sunbeam through on to the green earth. And that is only a highly imaginative way of saying that it is the love against which we transgress that thins away the cloud of transgression, and at last, as the placid moon, by simply shining silently on, will sweep the whole sky clear of its clouds, dissipates them all, and leaves the calm blue. ”

“ Clouds, it is plain, are more powerful than I. If I do not become a cloud, I shall burst with jealousy."
"Don't burst for so trifling a cause," said the angel, always on the watch. "Be a cloud, since you prefer to be so."
Proudly the new cloud planted himself between the earth and the resplendent planet.
Never, in the records of memory, did so much rain fall. The transformed stone-breaker took pleasure in launching rain and hail upon the earth, and that in such a terrible fashion that the uprooted trees found nothing left but mud in which to hold on to the ground. ”

“ In this mountain land too there are countless varieties of what may be called cloudscapes; the numerous summits attract and then break up the cloud masses into rough and fleecy shapes, some thick enough to obstruct the light, others edged by silvery gleams, and others again brilliant with the sun shining through them,—the whole exhibiting wonderful examples of aerial chaos. ”

“ As a storm-cloud lurid with lightning.
And a cry of lamentation,
Repeated and again repeated,
Deep and loud
As the reverberation
Of cloud answering unto cloud,
Swells and rolls away in the distance,
As if the sheeted
Lightning retreated,
Baffled and thwarted by the wind's resistance. ”

“ A dark, heavy, threatening cloud everspreads the face of the heavens. But that cloud is heavy, and dark, and threatening, only on this side. The other side, if we could but see it, is ablaze with heavenly radiance. We can easily imagine that this storm cloud of ours may be seen on the other side by angels, and that they gaze with admiration on its glowing colors, as we gaze in admiration on the golden glories of a sunset. ”