rom time immemorial
had been swept by great storms, the storms gradually subsided when man
went to reside permanently there. If this be true, it would seem that
the mere presence of man had a certain subduing or mesmerising effect
upon the native turbulence of Nature, and his absence now may have
removed the curb. It is my belief that within fifty years from now the
huge forces of the earth will be let fully loose to tumble as they will;
and this planet will become one of the undisputed playgrounds of Hell,
and the theatre of commotions stupendous as those witnessed on the face
of Saturn.

* * * * *

The Earth is all on my brain, on my brain, O dark-minded Mother, with
thy passionate cravings after the Infinite, thy regrets, and mighty
griefs, and comatose sleeps, and sinister coming doom, O Earth: and I,
poor man, though a king, sole witness of thy bleak tremendous woes. Upon
her I brood, and do not cease, but brood and brood--the habit, if I
remember right, first becoming fixed and fated during that long voyage
eastward: for what is in store for her God only knows, and I have seen
in my broodings long visions of her future, which, if a man should see
with the eye of flesh, he would spread the arms, and wheel and wheel
through the mazes of a hiccuping giggling frenzy, for the vision only is
the very verge of madness. If I might cease but for one hour that
perpetual brooding upon her! But I am her child, and my mind grows and
grows to her like the off-shoots of the banyan-tree, that take root
downward, and she sucks and draws it, as she draws my feet by
gravitation, and I cannot take wing from her: for she is greater than I,
and there is no escaping her; and at the last, I know, my soul will
dash itself to ruin, like erring sea-fowl upon pharos-lights, against
her wild and mighty bosom. Often a whole night through I lie open-eyed
in the dark, with bursting brain, thinking of that hollow Gulf of
Mexico, how identical in shape and size with the protuberance of Africa
just opposite, and how the protuberance of the Venezuelan and Brazilian
coast fits in with the in-curve of Africa: so that it is obvious to
me--it is quite _obvious_--that they once were one; and one night rushed
so far apart; and the wild Atlantic knew that thing, and ran gladly,
hasting in between: and how if eye of flesh had been there to see, and
ear to hear that cruel thundering, my God, my God--what horror! And if
now th