"In the pauses of the showers, you heard the rumbling of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding and hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain. Sometimes the cloud appeared to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning, to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster-shapes, striding across the gloom, hustling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapors were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes,--the agents of terror and of death."
Is there nothing similar to the preceding quotation in this?
"Vesuvius poured its deluge forth, the sea Shuddered and sent unearthly voices up, The isles of beauty, by the fire and surge Shaken and withered, on the troubled waves Looked down like spirits blasted; and the land Of Italy's once paradise became The home of ruin--vineyard, grove and bower, Tree, shrub, fruit, blossom--love, life, light and hope, All vanishing beneath the fossil flood And storm of ashes from the cloven brow Of the dread mountain buried in horror down. The echoes of ten thousand agonies Arose from mount and shore, and some looked back Cursing, and more bewailing as they fled."
------------"what a horrid gleam is flung Along that face of madness, as it turns From sea to mountain, and the wild eyes burn With revelations of the unborn time! We may not linger--shelter earth denies-- The very heavens like a gehenna lour-- And ocean is our refuge--on--on--on!"
We have seen how remarkably the lions agreed on the impropriety of making an amphitheatric meal of the lovers; now it appears that the tiger, who should have eat the Christian, was of the same mind.
"At that moment a wild yell burst through the air; and thinking only of escape, whither it knew not, the terrible tiger of the African desert leaped among the throng, and hurried through its parted streams. And so came the earthquake, and so darkness once more fell over the earth!"
Is it not strange that we should have conceived something much like this, and explained the motive, too, of such unreasonable conduct in any wild beast starving?