IS IT GOING TO RAIN? 85 



human race rained down but yesterday ! It is much 

 more probable that Caesar will flow out of a bung-hole 

 than that any part of his remains will ever stop one. 

 Our life is indeed a vapor, a breath, a little moisture 

 condensed upon the pane. We carry ourselves 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 im- 

 mensely 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 sup 



