The Romantic in the Rain

The middle classes of modern England are quite fanatically fond of washing;
and are often enthusiastic for teetotalism. I cannot therefore
comprehend why it is that they exhibit a mysterious dislike of rain.
Rain, that inspiring and delightful thing, surely combines the qualities
of these two ideals with quite a curious perfection. Our philanthropists
are eager to establish public baths everywhere. Rain surely is a public
bath; it might almost be called mixed bathing. The appearance of persons
coming fresh from this great natural lustration is not perhaps polished or
dignified; but for the matter of that, few people are dignified when
coming out of a bath. But the scheme of rain in itself is one of an
enormous purification. It realises the dream of some insane hygienist: it
scrubs the sky. Its giant brooms and mops seem to reach the starry
rafters and Starless corners of the cosmos; it is a cosmic spring cleaning.

If the Englishman is really fond of cold baths, he ought not to grumble at
the English climate for being a cold bath. In these days we are
constantly told that we should leave our little special possessions and
join in the enjoyment of common social institutions and a common social
machinery. I offer the rain as a thoroughly Socialistic institution. It
disregards that degraded delicacy which has hitherto led each gentleman to
take his shower-bath in private. It is a better shower-bath, because it
is public and communal; and, best of all, because somebody else pulls the
string.

As for the fascination of rain for the water drinker, it is a fact the
neglect of which I simply cannot comprehend. The enthusiastic water
drinker must regard a rainstorm as a sort of universal banquet and debauch
of his own favourite beverage. Think of the imaginative intoxication of
the wine drinker if the crimson clouds sent down claret or the golden
clouds hock. Paint upon primitive darkness some such scenes of apocalypse,
towering and gorgeous skyscapes in which champagne falls like fire from
heaven or the dark skies grow purple and tawny with the terrible colours
of port. All this must the wild abstainer feel, as he rolls in the long
soaking grass, kicks his ecstatic heels to heaven, and listens to the
roaring rain. It is he, the water drinker, who ought to be the true
bacchanal of the forests; for all the forests are drinking water.
Moreover, the forests are apparently enjoying it: the trees rave and reel
to and fro like drunken giants; they clash boughs as revellers clash cups;
they roar undying thirst and howl the health of the world.

All around me as I write is a noise of Nature drinking: and Nature makes a
noise when she is drinking, being by no means refined. If I count it
Christian mercy to give a cup of