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under his feet but the yielding element. The waves, torn and scattered by the wind, close round him hideously; the rolling of the abyss bears him along; shreds of water are flying about his head; a populace of waves spit upon him; confused openings half swallow him.

5. When he sinks he catches glimpses of yawning precipices full of darkness; fearful unknown vegetations seize upon him, bind his feet, and draw him to themselves; he feels that he is merged into the great deep; he forms part of the foam; the billows toss him from one to the other; he tastes the bitterness; the greedy ocean is eager to devour him; the monster plays with his agony. It seems as if all this were liquid hate.

6. But yet he struggles. He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he struggles; he swims. He, that poor strength that fails so soon, -he combats the unfailing.

7. Where now is the ship? Far away yonder, hardly visible in the pallid gloom of the horizon.

The wind blows in gusts; the billows overwhelm him. He raises his eyes, but sees only the livid clouds. He, in his dying agony, makes part of this immense insanity of the sea. He is tortured to his death by its immeasurable madness. He hears sounds which are strange to man,- sounds which seem to come not from earth, but from some frightful realm beyond.

8. There are birds in the clouds, even as there are angels above human distresses; but what can they do

for him? They fly, sing, and float, while he is gasping. He feels that he is buried at once by those two infinities, the ocean and the sky: the one is a tomb, the other a pall.

9. Night descends. He has been swimming for hours: his strength is almost exhausted. That ship, that far-off thing, where there were men, is gone: he is alone in the terrible gloom of the abyss. He sinks, he strains, he struggles; he feels beneath him the shadowy monsters of the unseen; he shouts.

10. Men are no more. Where is God? He shouts. Help! help!" He shouts incessantly. Nothing in

the horizon. Nothing in the sky!

He implores the blue vault, the waves, the rocks: all are deaf. He supplicates the tempest: the imperturbable tempest obeys only the Infinite.

11. Around him are darkness, storm, solitude, wild and unconscious tumult, the ceaseless tumbling of the fierce waters; within him, horror and exhaustion; beneath him, the ingulfing abyss: no resting place.

12. He thinks of the shadowy adventures of his lifeless body in the limitless gloom. The biting cold paralyzes him. His hands clutch spasmodically, and grasp at nothing. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, blasts, stars, all useless.

13. What shall he do? He yields to despair: worn out, he seeks death; he no longer resists; he gives himself up; he abandons the contest, and he is rolled away into the dismal depths of the abyss forever.

33.- New England Weather.

foi'bleş, weaknesses.

mulls (colloquial), ponders.

sumpt'ü-ous, costly, splendid. va-gā'ries, whims, freaks.

PREPARATORY NOTES.

This witty sketch, "New England Weather," is taken from a speech by Samuel L. Clemens (1835- —), who, under the pen name of "Mark Twain," is the most celebrated of American humorists.

(1) weather clerk: an allusion to the old phrase, "clerk of the weather." (3) Centennial: i.e., the great international exhibition held at Philadelphia in the summer of 1876, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the independence of the United States. — (5) Old Probabilities: a humorous title given to the chief of the Weather Bureau at Washington, whose reports of "weather probabilities" are now an item of daily news.

1. I don't know who makes New England weather; but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather clerk's factory, who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.

2. There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration — and regret. The weather is always doing something there, always attending strictly to business, always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in the spring than in any other season. In the

spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

3. It was I that made the fame and fortune of the man who had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world, and get specimens from all climes. I said, "Don't you do it: you come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity.

4. Well, he came, and he made his collection in four days. As to variety,— why, he confessed he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity,—well, after he had picked out and discarded all that were blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; weather to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.

5. "Old Probabilities" has a mighty reputation for accurate prophecy, and thoroughly well deserves it. You take up the papers, and observe how crisply and confidently he checks off what to-day's weather is going to be on the Pacific coast, down South, in the Middle States, in the Wisconsin region; see him sail along in the joy and pride of his power till he gets to New England. He can't any more tell that than he can tell how many presidents of the United States there are going to be.

6. Well, he mulls over it, and by and by he gets out something about like this: "Probable northeast to southeast winds, varying to the southward and westward and eastward and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes, with thunder and lightning." Then he jots down this postscript from his wandering mind, to cover accidents: "But it is possible that the programme may be wholly changed in the meantime."

7. Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it. There is only one thing certain about it: you are certain there is going to be plenty of weather, a perfect grand review; but you never can tell which end of the procession is going to move first.

8. You fix up for the drought: you leave your umbrella in the house, and sally out with your sprinkling pot, and ten to one you get drowned. You make up your mind that the earthquake is due: you stand from under, and take hold of something to steady yourself, and, the first thing you know, you get struck by lightning. These are great disappointments, but they can't be helped.

9. Now, as to the size of the weather in New England -lengthways I mean. It is utterly disproportionate to the size of that little country. Half the time, when it is packed as full as it can hold, you will see that New

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