To the marquis alone of the mourners the storm came as a relief to
his overcharged spirit. He had again opened his New Testament, and
tried to read; but if the truths which alone can comfort are not at
such a time present to the spirit, the words that embody them will
seldom be of much avail. When the thunder burst he closed the book
and went to the window, flung it wide, and looked out into the
court. Like a tide from the plains of innocent heaven through the
sultry passionate air of the world, came the coolness to his brow
and heart. Oxygen, ozone, nitrogen, water, carbonic acid, is it?
Doubtless--and other things, perhaps, which chemistry cannot
detect. Nevertheless, give its parts what names you will, its whole
is yet the wind of the living God to the bodies of men, his spirit
to their spirits, his breath to their hearts. When I learn that
there is no primal intent--only chance--in the unspeakable joy that
it gives, I shall cease to believe in poetry, in music, in woman, in
God. Nay, I must have already ceased to believe in God ere I could
believe that the wind that bloweth where it listeth is free because
God hath forgotten it, and that it bears from him no message to me.






CHAPTER XXII.

THE CATARACT.