nexpected the transformations of these immanent ideas! Yet
there is organic continuity throughout. So large is the place
filled by the phenomena of the winds, that human imagination
has not always stopped short at their mere personification or
deification. In many American languages, we are told, the same
word is used for storm and for god; so, too, with certain tribes
in Central Africa. That is to say, the name for the storm-wind
has become the general name for deity!

But how about the present? Can it be said that in the present
day, among civilised peoples, the phenomena of the winds have
any important part to play? An appeal to literature is decisive on
the point. No description of open-air life, or even of life within
doors where nature is not altogether shut out, can pass over the
emotional influences of the winds. They sob, they moan, they
sigh; they rustle, roar, or bellow; they exhilarate or depress;
they suggest many and varied trains of thought.

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude"--

the connection here is not altogether based on fancy--the biting
winds of winter have their own emotional "tone" for susceptible
minds, just as truly as the spanking breeze "that follows fast,"
or the balmy zephyr of summer, and have moulded modern
thought in manifold and unsuspected modes. Shelley, who has
been called the great laureate of the wind, contemplating the
coming storm and the wild whirling of the autumn leaves, is
profoundly moved and exclaims:

"O wild West-Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being--
. . . Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one,
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth."

Alexander Smith, with a spirit rendered buoyant by the blast,
tells how

"The Wind, that grand old harper, smote
His thunder harp of pines."

Guy de Maupassant, in the passage already partly quoted, shows
that the modern sailor can still personify. "Quel personnage, le
vent, pour les marins! On en parle comme d'un homme, d'un souverain
tout puissant, tantot terrible et tantot bienveillant. . . .
Aucun ennemi ne nous donne que lui la sensation du combat, ne
nous force a tant de prevoyance, car il est le maitre de la mer,
celui qu'on peut eviter, utiliser ou fuir, mais qu'on ne dompte
jamais." Kingsley breaks forth:

"Welcome, wild North-Easter!
Shame it is to see