Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-08-24

suddenly have become the order Of the
night
Tonight II was much too dark to
contemplate swimming Even as A Joke
no one would have gone In" tonight.
There was something almost ecrie about
the darkness, II was so moist, so COM
pletely dark.
There was damp seat on a damp
bench. There the lover Of nature might
sit quietly. contemplating the deepness
of the darkness and the darkness OF
the deepness, with sea and sky and
beach merging into one.
It seemed the darkest night he had
ever seen, or been part Of 1t. or sat
In. II It had not been for the slight
surge of the water as the small waves
broke on the beach. he would not have
known water was there.
II 1t had not been for those station
ary and moving luminous dots, he would
not have realized that any life moved
out there below him. any more than he
would have sensed that the sky above
him held stars which shone not.
It was a universal darkness, the sort
which must settle upon the earth. &C
cording to legend, at some future time,
In for the worship OF strange things.
A terrible, mystifying thought came.
Suppose no light would ever appear
again. Then what would happen?
Steadily he kept his eyes forward look
ing out into the darkness, In a direc-
ton which obliterated the steamers and
the light buoys and the lighthouses.
only darkness greeted him, In that
darkness there was neither here nor
there. There was no high or low, no
measurements, no comparisons.
He tried to picture what life must
have been like In the days when there
was no light. The things that lived then
did not miss light. because they had
never known IT, Light was the great ad-
venture.
In the early days Of mankind day and
night we're sharply contrasted. Only the
gleam of moon and stars and the rudy
glow Of burning logs. and the glare OF
torches. dripping sparks, gave light at
night
Century by century man improved his
weapons for fighting darkness, but 1t
was a slow march. Candles came at
last. through the multiplication Of which
rooms became lighter at night. and fes-
llNltieS look on All the artluClallty WHICH
invented lights bring.
Today mankind knows the electric
light. and the powerful electric beacons.
which illuminate the world at night in
a way never known before In the his
tory OF restless mankind.
Now some think TO outwit Nature by
staying up all night. They are the ad
vance guard. they proudly think. of the
men and women of the future who will
never retire into the darkness, but will
remain illuminated forever.
Darkness. blackness. no light---he was
afraid 10 turn around. lest the fltful
gleam from the cottage would be gone
Life seemed to have lost Its lights. and
there was no telling whether they would
be there II one turned around.
The urge to turn became greater and
greater, but the call OF" the dark held
firmly. There was to be no turning un-
til some spark of light appeared again
in the wide space of sky and water, in
distinguishable from one another.
spark OF light--a spark of light
He turncd--ah. the light In the cot
tage was still there. He stood up and
shook himself He was wet and cold,
but he had forgotten 1t, In his happi-
ness at seeing the light In the window.
He started back along the narrow path
between the dripping trees