Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-03-09
Ruskin on PIague-CIouds.

Lecturing at the London Institution on
the plague-cloud, Mr.. Ruskin said he was
DESTROYS of drawing attention to a series
of cloud phenomena which, so far as he
could weigh existing evidences, were pc
culiar to our own time and had not
hitherto received any special notice from
meteOrOlOgistS. Neither ancient nor
modern poets referred to these storm or
plague-clOuds, and, so far as he could
ascertain, they had not been seen in the
skies Of England, France or Italy prior to
1870. In olden days when the weather was
fine it was beautifully fine, and when it
was bad it was abominablY bad; but
then there was an end of it. Now, how
ever, we had these plague-clouds for
months without intermissiOn. In cOnsid-
ering the whole. question of clouds they
should be careful Of the advice of scien-
tifc people, who, if they endeavored to
explain anything, would be sure to show
one of two things-either that they knew
nothing to speak of about their subiect,Or
that having seen one side Of it, they had
not troubled to go round to the other.
Newton, for instance, was supposed to
have explained why an apple falls. but he
never explained the more difficult ques-
tion how the apple got up there. There
fore they would not expect him to explain
anything, but merely to put few facts
before them. His first experience of the
ing from Oxford to Abingdon, and he
then described it as appearing to be
composed of dead mems souls. blown
hither and thither as if doubling
which was the fittest place for them.
The scientific signs Of the plague wind
were briefly these: 1t was a wind of
darkness, the sky becoming suddenly
black. 1t was a malignant quality of
wind, uncOlnected with any one quarter
of the compass. 1t always blew tremu-
lousy, making the trees shudder, and it
polluted as well as enhanced the violence
of all natural and necessary storms. If
they wanted to know what the sun looked
like in one of these plague-clouds they
had only to throw bad half-croWn into a
basin of sOapy water. If he were asked
the meaning of these yenOmOus clouds he
could tell them none according to their
modern belief. He could tell them what
meaning it would have borne to men of
olden time. For the last 20 years Eng
land and all foreign nations, either
tempting her or following her, had
bIasphemed the name of the Deity
deliberately and openly; and every man,
by the advice of his superior, had done as
much injustice to his brother as it was in
his power TO do. The seers of old predict
ed physical gloom, and we had had so
much physical gloom the last few years
that it had been said that England was no
longer the empire on which the sun never
set, but had become one on which the sun
never rose. What was best to be done?
Whether they could bring back the sun
or not, they could assuTedly bring back
their own cheerfulness, their own hon.
esty, and their own tranquility of mind.
The paths of rectitude and plety once re-
gained, who should say that the promise
of old time would not be found to hold
good, and that the windows of heaven
being opened, blessings would be poured
out so that there would not be room
enough to receive them.