San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-03-22
IN THENIGHT.

Dld you ever stop anu Iulhh
how much comes to you in the
night, that never thrusts itself into
the consciousness Of garish days?
The most beautiful description Of
any natural object was one that I
heard Welsh preacher once give
of the opening Of night bloom
ing cereus. Who does not remem-
Der Mark Twsin's description OF
Athens by moonlight? Allllpoets
have raved over the moonlight,
and when moonlight and lake or
sea are united the imagery grows
in beauty as the fancy Of the poet
is adrift on the measureless tide OF
silence and light. Under the cano-
py of the upper blue, where the
stars break not their eternal ST.
lences, the heart grows strangely
susceptible to all sweet and pure
influences, the temptations OF the
day retire and the spirit is at its
best. Then rest or unrest, as the
mood and the movement OF the
mind directs, takes complete pos
session and earth is forgotten.
How often as child have l
wandered along the brink OF old
Niagara, the full moon fiinging its
radiance on the angry waters Of its
upper floods and the soft mists
rising into the pure ether, as the
smoke of the alter fires in the
temple of sacrifice, under the old
Durid worship, in that glorious
grove, the temple not made with
hands, still seen on many an an
cient hill il Briton. There, by
the ever tumbling waters, whose
thunder tones seemed a psalm TO
praise the Ancient of Eternal
Days, as the midnight hour ap-
preached and the strollers one by
one passed out from presence and
was left alone with my dear old
water-mother, what weird fancies
have come to me in the COM
munion with nature in the silence
of brooding hours, thoughts that
shaped all the afterward Of life
and were big with mortal destiny.
What has not thus come to me in
the night?
Who that has ever paced in
thoughtful loneness the streets OF
silent sleeping city, has not felt
the Influence OF that mysterious
movement of universe that is SO
family recognized when that city
is in the full tide of its business
activities, and the hum Of indus,
try browns out all inner sound
and man is only one of the bees in
that immense hive Of human
movement. To the thoughtful
man in that quiet hour OF contem'
, ,.,ativeness comes the masterful
influence of the unseen. The I'M
seen lives of the unseen dreamert
come before him in all their pos
sibilities of human contrast, and
in that night hour distinctions
vanish and the mind marvels al
the mighty mixture Of the mil
lions that go to make the sum
total of the light and darkness
the life and death Of the city.
1t is only when the roar Of the
great machinery of life is stilled
under the closed matches of sleeps
that the might Of its throb IL
realized, for silence Is always more
eloquent OF the tumult that in,
vades the ear, by contrast after
that tumult is ceased. For there
is no beauty OF color or from, like
the beauty of calm that comes
after a storm. The power o.
civilization is more sensed as one
passes out of its full tide of activi
ty, as the sunset hour approaches
and gradually takesIin the lull Of
its mighty pulsations until to
ward the midnight hour they SLOW
down to sluggishness and stop
There is nothing so reveals tn,
power OF the wild beast in hi
jungle as the mighty throbs o
his heart and the twitching o
his muscles in the rage Of hi
captivity. So in the Gagged city
captured and bound in the tempt
of the night, there is the sense re