Fortnight

“ So I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of the fireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me. And I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the distance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright stars. ”

“ The author of the Memorable Fortnight, devoted heart and soul as he was to the revolutionary movement, acknowledges that during the days from the 12th to the 14th of July, all respectable people shut themselves up in their houses. ”

“ The word is common in varying forms to Indo-European languages. The root is usually taken to be nak-, to perish, the word meaning the time when the light fails (cf. Gr. νέκος, Lat. nex, death, nocere, to hurt) . It was customary to reckon periods of time by nights, and we still use “fortnight” (O. Eng. feowertyne niht, fourteen nights) , but “se’n-night” (seven nights) has been displaced by “week” (q.v.) ”

“ As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning. ”

“ There were life, and motion, and a world astir, to divide the attention of Day. It was the eye of Night: of wakeful, watchful, silent, and attentive Night, with so much leisure for the observation of his wicked thoughts: that he dreaded most. There is no glare in the night. Even Glory shews to small advantage in the night, upon a crowded battle-field. How then shows Glory's blood-relation, bastard Murder! ”

“ The intimations of the night are divine, methinks. Men might meet in the morning and report the news of the night, what divine suggestions have been made to them. I find that I carry with me into the day often some such hint derived from the gods, such impulses to purity, to heroism, to literary effort, even, as are never day-born.
One of those mornings which usher in no day, but rather an endless morning, a protracted auroral season, for clouds prolong the twilight the livelong day.
Now that there is an interregnum in the blossoming of the flowers, so is there in the singing of the birds. ”

“ The brown night has retired, and the meek-eyed moon, mother of dews, has disappeared: the young day pours in apace; the mountains’ misty tops are swelling on the sight, and brightening in the sun. It is the cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour, to meditation due and sacred song; the air is coloured, the efflux divine turns hovels into palaces, and shoots with gold the rags of beggars. ”

“ He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung:
“A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.” ”

“ The morning light, the sound of the stirring réveillé, its bugle echoes answering each other from kloof to kloof, the rattle of accoutrements, and the roll of the martial drums, with their shrill accompaniments, the fifes, awoke the little world around.
Day is well represented as scattering roses in her path, for she brings much comfort to the wretched, whose wretchedness is not all of their own making. Amid the multitude who wake to the sunlight, some kind hand may be stretched out to those who suffer. ”

“ The stars of Night contain the glittering Day
And rain his glory down with sweeter grace
Upon the dark World’s grand, enchanted face—
All loth to turn away.
And so the Day, about to yield his breath,
Utters the stars unto the listening Night,
To stand for burning fare-thee-wells of light
Said on the verge of death.
O hero-life that lit us like the sun! ”

“ What a natural and touching thought, then, to associate a holy memory with the hour that links day with night!—the hour of twilight, when the dazzling sunlight is fading away, work is suspended, and propitious leisure brings on long, sweet, and sometimes dangerous reveries! ”

“ Eleven o’clock at night is the great supper-time of the working classes; then, by the steady and industrious mechanic, the final calumet is smoked, the borrowed newspaper read, the topics of the day, the prospects of the coming week, discussed with the cheery and hard-working helpmate who sits by the side of her horny-handed lord, fills his pipe, pours out his beer, and darns the little children’s hose. ”

“ Let your eight-day clocks—your gilded time-pieces—call you to work and eat, and rest. We are sacred things, set solemnly [Pg 94] apart from all secular uses. Our business is with Eternity, and the Church, and Heaven. Call on us no more to commune with the things of the world, and earth, and time. We are your cathedral bells, but we will be your household clock-chimes no longer."
Then the voice died away on the night air. For a few minutes there was silence, but soon it was broken by sobs and lamentations, and all the people lifted up their voice as one man, and wept. ”

“ The favorite season of visions is night—mainly the hour about midnight—and in the whole year, the time of Advent, but also the nights from Christmas to New Year. This is, of course, not a feature of supernatural life, but the simple effect of the greater quiet and the more thoughtful, inward life, which these seasons are apt to bring to busy men. The reality of our surroundings [Pg 125] disappears with the setting sun, and in deep night we are rendered almost wholly independent of the influence exercised in the day by friends, family, and even furniture. ”

“ Midnight was gathering slowly over the earth; the beautiful, the mystic hour, blent with a thousand memories, hallowed by a thousand dreams, made tender to remembrance by the vows our youth breathed beneath its star, and solemn by the olden legends which are linked to its majesty and peace—the hour in which, men should die ”

“ The sleepy afternoons glide away, the sun droops, and the quiet, coloured evening falls solemnly. Then comes the hush of the huge and thoughtful night; the wan stars wash the dust with silver, and the brave day is over. ”

“ The evening is comparable to old age; and on the other hand, the dawn of the morning resembles youth; the one full of comfort and hope, and then sad evening with its discouragement and tendencies to look on the dark side of things. But, just as the time of youth in life is very short and fleeting, so is the infancy of each new day, which quickly ages towards its evening. ”

“ Oh, thunder! ain’t it pleasant—sparking Sunday night?
But hark! the clock is striking; it is two o’clock, I snum,
As sure as I’m a sinner, the time to go has COME.
You ask, with spiteful accents, if “that old clock is right!”
And wonder if IT ever—sparked on Sunday night!
One, two, three sweet kisses; four, five, six, you hook;
But, thinking that you rob her, give back those you took;
Then, as for home you hurry, from the fair one’s sight,
Don’t you wish EACH DAY was only Sunday night?
[Pg 42]
Answer of Katy Darling. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII THE NIGHT SHIFT — ARRIVAL IN THE SHED — “FOLLOWING THE TOOL” — THE FORGEMAN’S HASTE AND BUSTLE — LIGHT AND SHADE — SUPPER-TIME — CLATTER AND CLANG — MIDNIGHT — WEARINESS — THE RELEASE — HOME TO REST
Whatever the trials of the day shift at the forge may be, those of the night turn are sure to be far greater. For the daytime is the natural period of both physical and mental activity. The strong workman, after a good night’s rest and sleep, comes to the task fresh, keen, vigorous, and courageous. ”

“ An elegant supper, and half an hour's conversation after it, closed the evening; when we returned home, delighted with our entertainment, and pleased with ourselves and each other. My imagination is so impressed with the festive scenes of the day that Morpheus waves his ebon wand in vain. The evening is fine beyond the power of description; all Nature is serene and harmonious, in perfect unison with my present disposition of mind. ”

“ The night before a battle must be a season of peculiar solemnity and suspense. The shades of night, giving indistinctness to the landscape, harmonize too well with the doubts which becloud the mind as to the morrow’s destiny. ”

“ Now comes the noontide hour—of all the hours, nearest akin to midnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. ”

“ And so the time lapses without epoch or era, and we know some half-score of mornings and evenings by tradition only. Almost the night is grieved and leaves her tears on the forelock of day, that men will not rush to her embrace, and fulfil at length the pledge so forwardly given in the youth of time. ”

“ A. John, Sitte, Brauch und Volksglaube im deutschen Westböhmen (Prague, 1905) , p. 11. The phrase “the Twelve Nights” in the sense of “the Twelve Days and Nights” is doubtless derived from the ancient Aryan custom of counting by nights instead of by days and of regarding the period of the earth's revolution on its axis as beginning with the night rather than with the day. ”

“ And the brightness of that day, as well as the darkness of the present night, directed the servant as to what he should be diligent in. Since it is true that 'the day is at hand,' let us put on the armour of light, and dress ourselves in garb fitting for it. Since it is true that 'the night is far spent' let us put off the works of darkness. ”

“ Midnight is, indeed, a most important period with us. The obligation of fasting begins just when the leading clock of every town strikes twelve; and as no priest can celebrate mass, on any day whatever, if he has taken the smallest portion of meat or drink after the beginning of the civil day, I have often seen clergymen devouring their supper against time, the watch upon the table, and the anxious eye upon the fatal hand, while large mouthfuls, [Pg 240] chasing one another down their almost convulsed throats, appeared to threaten suffocation. ”

“ Somehow or other I developed the idea that the evening would be the most fitting time for me to accomplish the awful deed, perhaps just at sundown. Three words, "the evening sacrifice," part of a half-forgotten hymn, faint relic of my boyhood, haunted me continually—
"The sun is sinking fast,
The daylight dies ”

“ Nothing, in fact, can equal the beauty of the northern summer's evening and night, if night it may be called that only wants the glare of day, the full light which frequently seems so impertinent, for I could write at midnight very well without a candle. ”

“ We awake, look at our watch, see “four o’clock”; it is only four o’clock in the morning, but we imagine that the whole day has gone by, so vividly does this nap of a few minutes, unsought by us, appear to have come down to us from the skies, by virtue of some divine right, full-bodied, vast, like an Emperor’s orb of gold. ”

“ The evening light, in our country hanging dubiously between the glare of noon and the darkness of midnight, invites to that condition of mind which lies between the intense alertness of day and the deep oblivion of sleep, and which seems the most favourable for the meditation of divine things. ”

“ One day, when a glorious Easter-morning dawned, a day on which he had once been wont to see joyous throngs making pilgrimage to his castle, he felt so ashamed of his downfall that he had not even heart to go to church, and was perplexed how to pass the bright sunny feast-days. ”

“ The day of our Lord’s Passion was universally regarded as a day of mourning—“dies amaritudinis,” St Ambrose calls it, “on which we fast.” [153] A fast day, on liturgical principles, can never be a festival, though, vice versâ, a festival can fall on a fixed day of fasting or abstinence, as, for example, the Annunciation.
When, at an early date, the Roman emperor made [74] a law forbidding the Courts to sit on Good Friday, this did not make it a festival. ”

“ Nay, is it night with you yet? We, for our part, we forget What night was, if it were. The loud red mouths of the fight Are silent and shut where we are. In our eyes the tempestuous air Shines as the face of a star. ”

“ This could not be if we understood only the first portion of the night, its beginning, to be signified by the word evening. For the evening, or beginning of the night, does not begin to dawn towards the first day of the week, but only the night which is concluded by the dawn. ”

“ Accustomed to fast from morning till evening, and trusting to the care of Providence, they dedicate the whole day to business, and in the evening partake of a moderate meal; and even if they have none, or only a very scanty one, they patiently wait till the next evening; and, neither deterred by cold nor hunger, they employ the dark and stormy nights in watching the hostile motions of their enemies. ”

“ To every garden-bred child the sudden blossoming and pale shining in the gloaming have ever given the evening primrose a special tender interest,—a faintly mystic charm through the chill of falling dew and the dim light, and through a half-sad atmosphere which has always encircled the flower, and has been felt by many of the poets, making them seldom sing the evening primrose as a flower of happiness. ”

“ Send it to yesterday.
WEDNESDAY
Half-way unto the end--the week's high noon.
The morning hours do speed away so soon!
And, when the noon is reached, however bright,
Instinctively we look toward the night. ”