Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning - an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run but without any observation of the heavenly bodies.
The result was that if it happened to clear off after a cloudy evening I frequently arose from my bed at any hour of the night or morning and walked two miles to the observatory to make some observation included in the programme.
There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire it is hardly a passion but a blight bred in the cloudy damp despondency of uneasy egoism.
A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.
Obama seemed poised to realign American politics after his stunning 2008 victory. But the economy remains worse than even the administration's worst-case scenarios and the long legislative battles over health care reform financial services reform and the national debt and deficit have taken their toll. Obama no longer looks invincible.