St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-09-23
The Lurid Light EIucidated.

Boston was very much startled by
the "lurid light of few days ago,
which excited good deal of comment
elsewhere as well. Now a wicked edi
tor of Baltimore paper comes out
with an explanation of the causes
which brought about so strange things
in Boston. He says:
The telegraph carried the tidings all
over the world that, ''in Boston, the
atmosphere was pervaded with "A yell
lowish light, which gave strange ap-
pearance to every object. On the
Common the grass presented a most
unnatural appearance the livid green
looking as though it was the result of
Il coat of paint The gas jets burned
with a white brilliancy, making them
resemble electric lights. The
prodigiOus phsychical heat that has
been generated in and around Boston
during the past summer vacation, by
conventions held, oratiOns delivered
and poems read, has been such that
Goldfish balls have assumed the come
tary condition, and intellect has, so to
speak, broke loose. Prosaic philOsO-
pliers try to account for it i'll Il physi-
cal way. They talk about the smoke
of forest fires and the floating pollen
in the air as intercepting the shorter
color waves, and leaving only the
orange and the yellow rays. But that
would not account for the ''livid green"
on Boston Common, "like coat of
paint" nor would it account for an
ordinary gas jet burning like an cleo
trio light. No; that explanation will
not do. The same energy, whatever it
| be, that makes an ordinary Boston
mind, i'll the opinion of other Boston
minds, blaze with the coruscations of
genius, makes an ordinary Boston gas
Jet burn like an electric light. 1t is
| the cOmetary or radiant condition of
pork and beans that has lit up Boston
Common with livid green. Emersoni-
an sceptics may, however, possibly be
think them that the lurid glow i'll and
around Boston was not objective, but
subjective it existed i'll the inner con-
seriousness of Boston. BostOnians
didn't really see it, but thought they
saw it. This is to say, that the lurid
glare and electric gas jet scintlllatlons
were the results of internal contiagra-
tions of intellectual energy, superin-
duced upon transcendental cogitatiOns
by the therapeutic action of cooling
beverages taken into the system by
suction through a straw. 1t is stated
by persons of large observation and
experience that gas Jets only increase
in brilliancy, but in apparent numbers,
under such Influences, and that vel
lowish glow of mist surrounds eXter-
- al, of M
this kind. The "livid green" is evolv-
ed by subjective contemplation OF
the rings around the eye on the morn
ing after an interview with the lamp
pOst-which, at the moment ofcontact
had emitted the electric cOruscatiOns
, already mentioned. But this theory is
clearly the work of calumny. The
: long record of Boston as the abode OF
, abstinence forbids any such hypOthe-
sis. 1t is true that the upper circle 81
thought in Boston adhere to the doe
trine of ''higher law" in temperance
IA something that teaches that while
prohibition is for the masses, the high
er Authorization of superior beings re-
quires them to irrigate the remotel
realms of thought by occasional visits
to those secluded abOdes of refresh
r ment which i'll New York are called
"gin mills" and "juicOries," but which
, in Boston, are called "studiOs." This
: hypothesis is, however, not only evi
in suggestion, but insufficient i'll ac
counting for the unusual and beautiful
} phenomena above mentioned; and the
only adequate explanation yet tender
} ed is the immense rush of mind thai
has converted a syndicate of cOdtisl
: balls into the nebulous or cometar!
condition of matter.