登陆注册
5247800000020

第20章 RAIN

Not excepting the falling stars--for they are far less sudden--there is nothing in nature that so outstrips our unready eyes as the familiar rain. The rods that thinly stripe our landscape, long shafts from the clouds, if we had but agility to make the arrowy downward journey with them by the glancing of our eyes, would be infinitely separate, units, an innumerable flight of single things, and the simple movement of intricate points.

The long stroke of the raindrop, which is the drop and its path at once, being our impression of a shower, shows us how certainly our impression is the effect of the lagging, and not of the haste, of our senses. What we are apt to call our quick impression is rather our sensibly tardy, unprepared, surprised, outrun, lightly bewildered sense of things that flash and fall, wink, and are overpast and renewed, while the gentle eyes of man hesitate and mingle the beginning with the close. These inexpert eyes, delicately baffled, detain for an instant the image that puzzles them, and so dally with the bright progress of a meteor, and part slowly from the slender course of the already fallen raindrop, whose moments are not theirs. There seems to be such a difference of instants as invests all swift movement with mystery in man's eyes, and causes the past, a moment old, to be written, vanishing, upon the skies.

The visible world is etched and engraved with the signs and records of our halting apprehension; and the pause between the distant woodman's stroke with the axe and its sound upon our ears is repeated in the impressions of our clinging sight. The round wheel dazzles it, and the stroke of the bird's wing shakes it off like a captivity evaded. Everywhere the natural haste is impatient of these timid senses; and their perception, outrun by the shower, shaken by the light, denied by the shadow, eluded by the distance, makes the lingering picture that is all our art. One of the most constant causes of all the mystery and beauty of that art is surely not that we see by flashes, but that nature flashes on our meditative eyes. There is no need for the impressionist to make haste, nor would haste avail him, for mobile nature doubles upon him, and plays with his delays the exquisite game of visibility.

Momently visible in a shower, invisible within the earth, the ministration of water is so manifest in the coming rain-cloud that the husbandman is allowed to see the rain of his own land, yet unclaimed in the arms of the rainy wind. It is an eager lien that he binds the shower withal, and the grasp of his anxiety is on the coming cloud. His sense of property takes aim and reckons distance and speed, and even as he shoots a little ahead of the equally uncertain ground-game, he knows approximately how to hit the cloud of his possession. So much is the rain bound to the earth that, unable to compel it, man has yet found a way, by lying in wait, to put his price upon it. The exhaustible cloud "outweeps its rain,"

and only the inexhaustible sun seems to repeat and to enforce his cumulative fires upon every span of ground, innumerable. The rain is wasted upon the sea, but only by a fantasy can the sun's waste be made a reproach to the ocean, the desert, or the sealed-up street.

Rossetti's "vain virtues" are the virtues of the rain, falling unfruitfully.

Baby of the cloud, rain is carried long enough within that troubled breast to make all the multitude of days unlike each other. Rain, as the end of the cloud, divides light and withholds it; in its flight warning away the sun, and in its final fall dismissing shadow. It is a threat and a reconciliation; it removes mountains compared with which the Alps are hillocks, and makes a childlike peace between opposed heights and battlements of heaven.

同类推荐
  • Cambridge Neighbors

    Cambridge Neighbors

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 秦中岁时记

    秦中岁时记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • King John

    King John

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 上元夜忆长安

    上元夜忆长安

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 梼杌闲评

    梼杌闲评

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 我有亿万小号

    我有亿万小号

    我是忍者。我是武者。也能修真;还能炼金。我也许是一棵树,还能是一台自动贩卖机。
  • 闪婚厚爱:强宠冷漠小娇妻

    闪婚厚爱:强宠冷漠小娇妻

    结婚的时候,他不情,她不愿;结婚当晚,本该柔情蜜意,温柔缠绵,他却无情地抛下她,三天未归,她却淡然如水。婚后一年,他对她宠溺纵容,她对他悉心照顾,两人日日同床共枕,他却从来不肯碰她一分一毫,甚至连她主动送到门前都不要……
  • 雾满西楼

    雾满西楼

    魔界之主花兮觉得管理一方很心累,便偷偷溜到人界。听到讨论围剿魔教,花兮觉得亲切,决定去“魔教”助他们一臂之力。路上遇见了刚刚化为人形的少年燕绥之,还结识了迟九、于秋,四人行热闹是热闹。渐渐的花兮察觉自己喜欢上了燕绥,可是,在她的眼里,燕绥只是一个凡人,最终决定,等他死后,去抢他的魂,让他随她回去魔界。却不知燕绥之早已谋划许久,就差她主动送上门!
  • 宗镜录

    宗镜录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 你会遇见谁

    你会遇见谁

    原来我三岁的时候你就开始监视我?!可恶,既然之前一直藏的那么深,为什么还要突然蹦出来....对我那么差……“我们之间一直都是你想纠缠就纠缠,想放手就放手,全然不顾及我的感受.....那么这一次…能不能....由我决定?”“离开我的世界,谁都不要再想起谁......”缘起缘落,你和我是不是彼此最后的归途?原来你从未离去……
  • 浮影

    浮影

    下午三点钟的时候,办公室的陆美云从澡堂洗了澡出来,老远就听见有人在喊。回头看时,就见工会的黄胖子黄爱玲从食堂那头颠颠地跑来。黄胖子气还没喘匀,就开始冲着陆美云哇啦哇啦地喊,我看你奖金是不想拿了,上班的时候去洗澡。我就知道你肯定是在洗澡。黄胖子身子很粗,嗓子却是很细,说话的声音又高又尖,听起来就很刺耳。不过,陆美云同黄胖子很要好,所以,陆美云听黄胖子说话并不刺耳。陆美云笑一笑,沥了沥头发上的水,说,你什么时候要给厂里发奖金了?我现在早都忘了奖金长什么样了。
  • 奇书《山海经》

    奇书《山海经》

    《山海经》是先秦古籍,是一部富于神话传说的最古老的地理书。它主要记述古代地理、物产、神话、巫术、宗教等,也包括古史、医药、民俗、民族等方面的内容。除此之外,《山海经》还以流水帐方式记载了一些奇怪的事件,对这些事件至今仍然存在较大的争论。最有代表性的神话寓言故事有,夸父逐日、女娲补天、精卫填海、鲧禹治水等。
  • 全球怪物在线

    全球怪物在线

    天才科学家以“梦幻因子”把全球进行了游戏化。游戏之后,大量的生物变成了各种的怪物:丧尸,魔兽,巨龙!部分的人类更加是被强制登陆游戏,化身为各种职业,在这个名为“全球怪物OL”的真实游戏之中,挣扎救存。
  • 新闻传播学的学术想象与教育反思

    新闻传播学的学术想象与教育反思

    如何建构新闻传播学科?如何推动新闻传播教育?本书分为理解新闻传播学、作为志业的新闻传播教育二个部分,第一部分从哲学、历史、文化、社会、政治、心理等多角度建立新闻传播学的想象力,并通过学术对话验证了某些学术想象;第二部分围绕全面实现新闻教育的综台性、学木性和人文性展开探讨,既有对新闻传播教育的台理性的深思,也有对教学改革、读书与研究方法的分享。
  • 在座的都是大佬

    在座的都是大佬

    凌磐月一直觉得这个世界不太对,她发现身边的人都有点不对劲:她的兄弟姐妹为何年纪轻轻都如此流啤,世界数一数二的某组织头头?还有她的同学,似乎也个个拿了玛丽苏剧本。还有,谁家学校叫“圣樱学院”啊?总之,这是不正经的玛丽苏世界。