IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 71 



selves as in a phial. Cleave the flesh, and how quickly 

 we spill out ! Man begins as a fish, and he swims in a 

 sea of vital fluids as long as his life lasts. His first 

 food is milk; so is his last and all between. He 

 can taste and assimilate and absorb nothing but 

 liquids. The same is true throughout all organic 

 nature. 'T is water-power that makes every wheel 

 move. Without this great solvent, there is no life. 

 I admire immensely this line of Walt Whitman : 



" The slumbering and liquid trees." 



The tree and its fruit are like a sponge which the 

 rains have filled. Through them and through all 

 living bodies there goes on the commerce of vital 

 growth, tiny vessels, fleets and succession of fleets, 

 laden with material bound for distant shores, to 

 build up, and repair, and restore the waste of the 

 physical frame. 



Then the rain means relaxation; the tension in 

 Nature and in all her creatures is lessened. The 

 trees drop their leaves, or let go their ripened fruit. 

 The tree itself will fall in a still, damp day, when 

 but yesterday it withstood a gale of wind. A moist 

 south wind penetrates even the mind and makes its 

 grasp less tenacious. It ought to take less to kill a 

 man on a rainy day than on a clear. The direct 

 support of the sun is withdrawn; life is under a 

 cloud; a masculine mood gives place to something 

 like a feminine. In this sense, rain is the grief, the 

 weeping of Nature, the relief of a burdened or ago- 

 nized heart. But tears from Nature's eyelids are 

 always remedial and prepare the way for brighter, 

 purer skies. 



