In a narrow lane which communicates with the shady street I discern the rich old merchant putting himself to the top of his speed lest the rain should convert his hair-powder to a paste . Unhappy gentleman ! By the slow vehemence and painful moderation wherewith he journeys , it is but too evident that Podagra has left its thrilling tenderness in his great toe . But yonder , at a far more rapid pace , come three other of my acquaintance , the two pretty girls and the young man unseasonably interrupted in their walk . Their footsteps are supported by the risen dust , the wind lends them its velocity , they fly like three sea-birds driven landward by the tempestuous breeze . The ladies would not thus rival Atalanta if they but knew that any one were at leisure to observe them . Ah ! as they hasten onward , laughing in the angry face of nature , a sudden catastrophe has chanced . At the corner where the narrow lane enters into the street they come plump against the old merchant , whose tortoise-motion has just brought him to that point . He likes not the sweet encounter ; the darkness of the whole air gathers speedily upon his visage , and there is a pause on both sides . Finally he thrusts aside the youth with little courtesy , seizes an arm of each of the two girls , and plods onward like a magician with a prize of captive fairies . All this is easy to be understood . How disconsolate the poor lover stands , regardless of the rain that threatens an exceeding damage to his well-fashioned habiliments , till he catches a backward glance of mirth from a bright eye , and turns away with whatever comfort it conveys ! The old man and his daughters are safely housed , and now the storm lets loose its fury . In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the windows , excluding the impetuous shower and shrinking away from the quick fiery glare . The large drops descend with force upon the slated roofs and rise again in smoke . There is a rush and roar as of a river through the air , and muddy streams bubble majestically along the pavement , whirl their dusky foam into the kennel , and disappear beneath iron grates . Thus did Arethusa sink . I love not my station here aloft in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell , with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear . I will descend .
Yet let me give another glance to the sea , where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness or boils up in far-distant points like snowy mountain-tops in the eddies of a flood ; and let me look once more at the green plain and little hills of the country , over which the giant of the XXXXX is striding in robes of mist , and at the town whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead ; and , turning a single moment to the sky , now gloomy as an author 's prospects , I prepare to resume my station on lower earth .
Arethusa Podagra first habiliments hair-powder landward left lightning storm tumult