The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-03-26

everywhere, in the rackiDg 10 pieces, in the
frowning, in the restlsssness, in the perpetual
contradiction, in the lights and shadows, In
the grading of the clouds, in the vsulted key
stones forever displaced, in the disintegration
without gap and without fracture, and in the
funereal din that is made by all this frenzy.
The wind came out due north. IL was so
favorable in its strength, and so fair for get
ting away from England that the master of
the Mstutna decided to crowd her with can
vas. The ork broke away in the foam as at a
gallop, all sails spread, wind astern, bounding
from wave to wave with rage and elee. The
fugitives, enraptured, laughed.
England became obliterated; the fugtives
had no longer anything about them but
the sea.
Ali at once that night was terrible.
There was no more distance or space. The
sky was turned into blackness, and shut itself
down upon the vessel. Slowly the fall of snow
began. Some flakes appeared. One might
have thought them souls. Nothing was
longer visible on this race-course of the
wind. One felt oneself delivered over.
Everything possible is therein-deception
1t is by this cavernous obscurity that the
polar whirlwind OF snow makes its debut in
our cline.
A vast turbid cloud, like the underbody of
a hydra, weighed upon the ocean, and in
places this livid belly adhered to the waves.
Where it adhered, there was the resemblance
of pockets full of holes, exhaling vapor, and
filling themselves with water. These suctions
threw up, here and there upon the waves,
cones of spume.
The boTeal hurricane threw itself upon the
ork; the ork flung up its heels therein. The
gust and the vessel came together, as though
to insult each other.
In the first infuriate onset, not a sail was
brailed up, not jib was lowered, not a reef
was taken in-so frenzied was the onward
rush. The mast creaked and bent backwards
as though affrighted.
Cyclones, in our northern hemisphere, work
from right and left, like the hands of watch,
with whirling movement that equals some
times 60 miles an hour. Though she was en-
tirely at the mercy of this fierce rotatory as
sault, the ork behaved as though under con-
troll, with no other precaution than that of
keeping itself upright, and of presenting her
head to the first blaze, while receiving another
on her side, and avoiding another astern.
This quasi prudence would have served no
purpose, in the event Of the wind veering
suddenly from one quarter to the opposite.
A hollow sound inflated an inaccessible
region.
The believing of the abyss-nothing is
comparable to this. 1t is the immense bestial
voice of the world. What we call matter
that unfathomable organism, that amalgama-
sometimes recognizes an imperceptible amount
of horritying intention, that Cosmos blind and
nocturnal, that Pan incomprehensible-ha a
cry, cry strange, prolonged, obstinate con-
tinued, which is less than the word and more
than thunder. This cry, it is the tempest.
Other voices-songs, melodies, clamor, words
issue from nests, from hatchings, from pair
ings, from marriages, from dwelling places;
this one, the whirlwind, issues from the
Nothing which is All. Other voices express
the soul of the universe; this one tells of its
monster. II is shapeless bowling. 1t is the
ipartioulate spoken by the indefinite. Fact,
pathetic and full Of terror These noises
carry on dialogues above and beyond man.
They rise up, are lowered, iuctuate, induce
waves of sound, give rise to all sorts of indig-
nant surprises in the mind, now burst forth
close to our ears with the importuning of a
flourish on trumpets, now have the husky
hoarseness of the far-off disordered hurry
burly that resembles a language, and that
is a language in truth; 1t is the effort that
the world itself makes at speaking; it ia
the stammering of prodigy. In this wall.
ing confusedly manifests itself all that an
enormous sinister palpitation endures, un
most frequently, this wailing reasons
falsely; seems to be an access of chroni,
mslady, is rather widespread epilepsy thar
| q force employed; one imagines onesel
assisting at fall from an epileptic fit into the
infinite. At intervals, one has glimpses o
the iablishment Of the normal order o
things, one knows not what feeble attempt o
chaos to reassert its sway over creation. A
intervals it is q complaint; space lament
and justiies itself, somewhat as though tn
cause of the world were being pleaded. On
fancies that the universe is lawsuit. On
listens, one tries to seize the reasons assigned
the tremendous for and against. Such groau
ing of the shades has the tenaeity of syllc
gism.