How Spring Came in New England | Page 8

winds. We are familiar with the different "forms of water."
All this was only the prologue, the overture. If one might be permitted
to speak scientifically, it was only the tuning of the instruments. The
opera was to come,--the Flying Dutchman of the air.
There is a wind called Euroclydon: it would be one of the Eumenides;
only they are women. It is half-brother to the gigantic storm-wind of
the equinox. The Euroclydon is not a wind: it is a monster. Its breath is
frost. It has snow in its hair. It is something terrible. It peddles
rheumatism, and plants consumption.
The Euroclydon knew just the moment to strike into the discord of the
weather in New England. From its lair about Point Desolation, from the
glaciers of the Greenland continent, sweeping round the coast, leaving
wrecks in its track, it marched right athwart the other conflicting winds,
churning them into a fury, and inaugurating chaos. It was the Marat of
the elements. It was the revolution marching into the "dreaded wood of
La Sandraie."
Let us sum it all up in one word: it was something for which there is no
name.
Its track was destruction. On the sea it leaves wrecks. What does it
leave on land? Funerals. When it subsides, New England is prostrate. It
has left its legacy: this legacy is coughs and patent medicines. This is
an epic; this is destiny. You think Providence is expelled out of New
England? Listen!
Two days after Euroclydon, I found in the woods the hepatica-- earliest
of wildwood flowers, evidently not intimidated by the wild work of the
armies trampling over New England--daring to hold up its tender
blossom. One could not but admire the quiet pertinacity of Nature. She
had been painting the grass under the snow. In spots it was vivid green.
There was a mild rain,--mild, but chilly. The clouds gathered, and
broke away in light, fleecy masses. There was a softness on the hills.
The birds suddenly were on every tree, glancing through the air, filling
it with song, sometimes shaking raindrops from their wings. The cat
brings in one in his mouth. He thinks the season has begun, and the
game-laws are off. He is fond of Nature, this cat, as we all are: he

wants to possess it. At four o'clock in the morning there is a grand
dress-rehearsal of the birds. Not all the pieces of the orchestra have
arrived; but there are enough. The grass-sparrow has come. This is
certainly charming. The gardener comes to talk about seeds: he
uncovers the straw-berries and the grape-vines, salts the asparagus-bed,
and plants the peas. You ask if he planted them with a shot-gun. In the
shade there is still frost in the ground. Nature, in fact, still hesitates;
puts forth one hepatica at a time, and waits to see the result; pushes up
the grass slowly, perhaps draws it in at night.
This indecision we call Spring.
It becomes painful. It is like being on the rack for ninety days,
expecting every day a reprieve. Men grow hardened to it, however.
This is the order with man,--hope, surprise, bewilderment, disgust,
facetiousness. The people in New England finally become facetious
about spring. This is the last stage: it is the most dangerous. When a
man has come to make a jest of misfortune, he is lost. "It bores me to
die," said the journalist Carra to the headsman at the foot of the
guillotine: "I would like to have seen the continuation." One is also
interested to see how spring is going to turn out.
A day of sun, of delusive bird-singing, sight of the mellow earth,-- all
these begin to beget confidence. The night, even, has been warm. But
what is this in the morning journal, at breakfast?--"An area of low
pressure is moving from the Tortugas north." You shudder.
What is this Low Pressure itself,--it? It is something frightful, low,
crouching, creeping, advancing; it is a foreboding; it is misfortune by
telegraph; it is the "'93" of the atmosphere.
This low pressure is a creation of Old Prob. What is that? Old Prob. is
the new deity of the Americans, greater than AEolus, more despotic
than Sans-Culotte. The wind is his servitor, the lightning his messenger.
He is a mystery made of six parts electricity, and one part "guess." This
deity is worshiped by the Americans; his name is on every man's lips
first in the morning; he is the Frankenstein of modern science. Housed
at Washington, his business is to direct the storms of the whole country
upon New England, and to give notice in advance. This he does.
Sometimes he sends the storm, and then gives notice. This is mere
playfulness on his part: it is all one to him.