Over the stretch of a millennium we see the impact of previous weather cycles—periods of extreme cold, of drought, of floods, of time when the Thames froze over—and the impression made by such momentary oddities as meteors or rainbows. In past centuries, these might be read as signs from God: tokens of punishment or reminders of the need for fortitude. By the later 19th century, Hardy could use the rain that falls on a grave as a pointer to nature’s indifference; an indifference that is there, too, in the “Time Passes” section of Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. The meaning of English weather changed as the English themselves changed.