John Seely Hart

“ So, after all, it took Time, patient teacher, to instil a full appreciation of the delights of twilight. Time brought the thousand things which make at once the charm and the sadness of that mystic hour;—the fleeting, intangible Past, the ideal hues which form a fairy halo round the most common-place occurrences; the real Present, contrasting vividly with the buried life; the last friends beyond the skies to draw our thoughts thither, and more than all, the feeling that we have tasted through experience somewhat of existence, and have earned a right to moralize upon its fleeting pleasures. ”

“ Yet we can remember, when a little child, thinking the twilight hour the gloomiest of the twenty-four—a dark spirit commanding us to give up work or play, and loiter restlessly around the house, till the first welcome glimmer of a light released us from its dismal thraldom. It seemed to us the most particularly unpleasant arrangement of nature to be conceived, and often and often did we wonder ourself stupid, trying to solve the phenomenon. ”

“ Sometimes, too, of a winter’s evening, we found our way into the warm, bright, cozy kitchen, bringing our noise and mirth with us, which was speedily quelled, however, through the influence of the presiding spirit of the place—a tidy, thrifty servant girl, who loved us all dearly—troublesome as we were—and who, despite her unattractive appearance, stole a place for herself in our kind memories. ”