ONE day, Leon Wieseltier was sailing near Shelter Island in an Alaskan strait. Suddenly his boat was caught in a wild storm. He was terrified. He was alone. The squall and waves threatened his end.

At this crucial moment, a seagull landed on his boat. The bird looked at him with total indifference. And this was when, as Wieselter writes, he became aware of the indifference of nature towards humans in distress.

I had never before been regarded so