On Typhoons

[Ecurb]

The recent typhoon in the Phillipines reminded me of a letter Jane Austen sent to her sister Cassandra after some distant natural disaster.

Jane Austen's take:

"How horrible it is to have so many people killed! And what a
blessing that one cares for none of them!"

[Nick Capozzoli]

Philip Pain, a generally unknown colonial American poet, wrote a great short poem that is relevant to the topic and shows, IMHO, a lot more thought than Austen's comment:

Meditation 8

Scarce do I pass a day, but that I hear
Some one or other's dead, and to my ear
Me thinks it is no news. But oh! did I
Think deeply on it, what it is to die,

My pulses all would beat, I should not be
Drowned in this deluge of security.