The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-02-13


quickly and easily as under the noon
tide. The dealer in dry goods finds
every tint and shade and fibre of his va
riagated merchandise as wildly display
ed on his counters after shutdown as in
his windows before. it. The manu-
facturer of wooden, cotton and silk,
can weave his finest tissues at one
hour as well as at another. Even the
fogs of the dye-house can be made to
lift themselves above the light which
shines under them. The miner, also,
need no longer emerge with his spoils
to the surface before he knows the ex-
tent of his find, but may assert the ore
from the rock in the darkest depths of
his gallery or pit, and, better than all,
in perfect safety from fire. damp. Nor
does the penetrative force of the light
stop at these more practical industries.
The actors and singers on the stage
find their voices released in the re
moval of the barrier of heated and
shimmering air generated by the foot
lights of gas. The fair ones of the
salon and the assembly are made more
beautiful by the cressets of opal and
the globes of lemon-color which chasten
the electric fires above them. The
artist can work at his picture, as the
scholar or poet at his theme, whenever
the inspiration seizes him. The finest
decorations of interiors which have
hitherto shrunk from the gas lights as
from an agent of injury, may give up
their wax lights and adopt the soft diff
fusion of light as innoxious as that of
day.
But its generosity and benefcence
stop not even here. Its radiance on
the streets insures safety greater than
the most vigilapt of police. Under the
shower of its effulgence the parks are
cleared of their scandalous firtations.
Indeed we may expect all the evils
which love the darkness to flee before
this light. 1t will prove guardian of
morals, as we'll as a safeguard to the
community.
And'what the light is on the land it
is also on the water. The lighthouse
already sees the enlargement of its H.
Illuminated circle. The ships prov
moves on in the wake of its
own lightning sent before. And now
we are soon to see the idea of the an
cient Pharos revived, our own great
mercantile bay illuminated, like the
bay of Alexandria-not as then by a
tower with fires and mirrors its sum-
nit, but by a bronze COLOSSUS three
times taller than that of Rhodes, and
as tall as the Pharos, holding in her
upstretched hand a sheaf of electric
lights-another of the seventy-times
seven wonders of the modern world
rounding the commercial cycle which
began in that seventh wonder of the
ancient world; curiousily also, shining
afar upon the self-same obelisk which
that very light of Alexandria Bay once
shone upon, and guarding the greater
vessels of a greater commerce as they
also ride at anchor on the bosom of
the harbor or enter its gates from the
dark ocean beyond.
1t is we'll indeed, and suspicious too.
that Liberty Enlightening the World
is to hold SO glorious symbol abund-
ance and benefcence in her right hand
against our sky; an image, as 1t is the
issue, of that light which is without
money and without price, a sign of so
vast purchase such small ex-
penditure all the means by which
labor is to be multiplied, enterprise en-
couraged, society guarded and civil
uatia., aduancad