Midnight sun

“ Noonday and midnight are alike; and, except a vague glimmer on the sky, that seems to define the hill-outlines to the south, we have nothing to tell us that this arctic world of ours has a sun. In one week more we shall reach the midnight of the year...... ”

“ But how does the exquisite spend his hours? It may be safely asserted that midnight very often passes before he seeks his bed, after the fatigues of the day and night—and that the sun has mounted high in the meridian before he awakes from slumbers which are not refreshing. ”

“ Later it might have been possible to reckon it from noon to noon, when some method of fixing the moment of noon had been invented; some method, that is to say, of fixing the true north and south, and of noting that the sun was due south, or the shadow due north. Our own reckoning from midnight to midnight is a late method. Midnight is not marked by the peculiar position of any visible heavenly body; it has, in general, to be registered by some mechanical time-measurer. ”

“ The dark part is the night, and the light part the day. When we are having summer any particular spot on the Northern Hemisphere has quite a long way to travel in the light, and only a very short bit in the dark, and the further north you go the longer the day and shorter the night, until right up near the North Pole, within the Arctic Circle, it is daylight all the time. You have, perhaps, heard of the 'midnight sun' that people go to see in the North, and what the expression means is that at what should be midnight the [Pg 40] sun is still there. ”

“ While it has for obvious reasons become customary in all civilized countries to commence the ordinary or civil day at midnight, astronomers count the day from noon, being the transit of the mean sun across the meridian, in strict conformity with the rule as to the beginning of the sidereal day. ”

“ By the dispersive powers of this medium, sunlight is converted into daylight; and instead of unbearable, parallel rays illuminating brilliantly, and scorching up with heat those parts upon which they directly fall, leaving all other parts in the darkness of night, we enjoy the blessings of a diffusion of its rays, and experience the beauties of soft shades and slowly-deepening shadows. Without an atmosphere, the sun of the morning would burst upon us with unbearable brilliancy, and leave us suddenly, at the close of day, at once in utter darkness. ”

“ Both Lady Ebony and Midnight had grown thick, warm coats and the nights did not bother them. Frost carpeted the meadow with white jewels every night, and every day the sun melted the frost. Sam did not come and Tex did not come galloping out of the timber at the head of his roundup crew. The crew had finished its work in the high country the week before Lady Ebony’s arrival, and had left the brown grass and the everlasting green spruce to the blizzards and the deep snows. The horses and the white-faced cattle were all accounted for. ”

“ Again they drift into the dark regions of slumber, lapped in silence and deep tranquillity, where the lights of men are extinguished, and the stars, redoubling their lustre, gleam whitest silver in heaven’s jetty dome. Midnight involves the world ”

“ The Strong Survive When the little black stallion came out of his shelter the morning after the wolf raid the sun was shining on the glare of ice which covered the meadow. The old timber-line buck was plunging toward the feed ground. Midnight whinnied eagerly for his mother and shook his head impatiently. He was hungry and wanted her badly. When he got no answer he moved down the ledge trail. At the spot where the wolves had attacked him he halted and sniffed the snow, blowing loudly, pawing the ground angrily. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This cool morning light, this half-daylight that precedes the rising of the sun, is the aurora or morning twilight. In the meantime a lark, the joy of the fields, takes wing to the highest clouds, like a rocket, and is the first to salute the awakening day. It mounts and mounts, always singing, as if to get in front of the sun ”

“ 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. ”

“ Were we from the darkness of night at once exposed to the luminous rays of the Sun, it would dazzle our eyes and render them unfit to distinguish a single object.—It is only by a gradual transition from darkness to light that we are able to accustom our eyes to the brilliancy of noon. ”

“ There is, near the equator, a certain indescribable effect of clear, starry night creeping over the earth even while it is still daylight, and almost before one has come to realise that the sun has set: not the usual pale-starred, indigo effect of the sky, but a sense of deep, brooding night that is most subtle and peculiarly hard to catch owing to its shortness of duration. ”

“ The sun, that had throbbed the livelong day like a great heart of fire in a sea of brass, was sinking from sight in clouds of crimson, purple and gold, yet Paul's Walk was crowded. There were court-gallants in ruffles and plumes; ballad-singers chanting the not over-delicate ditties of the Earl of Rochester; usurers exchanging gold for bonds worth three times what they gave for them; quack-doctors reading in dolorous tones the bills of mortality of the preceding day, and selling plague-waters and anti-pestilential abominations, whose merit they loudly extolled ”

“ The sun wheeled higher, warming the grass, drinking up the dew. The black mare wandered down the meadow. She came to a halt near a sharp ledge which broke off into Shadow Canyon. From the blue depths rose the roar of Crazy River. Lady Ebony stirred uneasily. A feeling of deep unrest filled her, an urge to run far, to seek other horses. After a time she wandered back into the meadow and began feeding, but she jerked up [Pg 9] her head often, listening, staring into the twilight of the spruce. ”

“ When daylight was once established there was no more real night, though the sun made thirty-seven more and more shallow dips below the horizon before rising spirally through the heavens in perpetual day. ”

“ Now that the white light from the sun-bathed peaks above was making the meadow bright he began to show signs of restlessness. The cows fed on, eager to fill their paunches before they sought deep cover to lie down. The old wapiti shook his horns and lifted his muzzle. He trotted to a little knoll well above his band. He was filled with courage and desire, proud of his fine antlers, conscious of the power within his twelve hundred pounds of weight. ”

“ We are so accustomed to the steady glow of sunshine pouring down upon us that we pay very little heed to daylight, though I hope none of us are quite so ignorant as the man who praised the moon above the sun, because it shone in the dark night, whereas the sun came in the daytime when there was light enough already! ”

“ If you watch the sun you will see it pass higher and higher every noon until Midsummer Day is reached, and then the sun at noon is found quite high up in the sky. As autumn draws near, the sun at noon creeps downwards again until, when the next shortest day has come round, we find that it passes just where it did at the previous midwinter. With unceasing regularity year after year the sun goes through these changes. When he is high at noon we have days both long and warm; when he is low at noon we have days both short and cold. ”

“ The evening sun and aurora in the night, the sun and the verdant earth, which divests itself of its varicoloured attire in autumn, veil, cover, and lose themselves; their most vivid hues become obscure in the gloom of night, or are covered by the snow of winter; the hero becomes a dark-coloured dove, or a gloomy swan which crosses the waters. I have noted more than once how the night of the year corresponds to those of the day; the sun which hides itself in the night of evening, and the sun which veils itself in the night of winter, are often represented by the same mythical images. ”

“ It was not the kind of light that dazzles the eye and pains: it gave an effect more like that which one feels in watching the sun rise, when the first streaks{150} of dawn come in the sky and every moment brings more light, makes all objects more distinct and vivid. It seemed as if each step took them nearer and nearer to the serene splendour of noontime. ”

“ He was thinking of a woman he knew. The cards, greasy with handling and stained with whiskey and candle tallow, lay scattered between us. The desire for gambling was gone, and there was no more whiskey.
"Cheer up, Red," I said. "Listen--I'll tell you: Somewhere in the world the sun is coming up like a red dragon to shine on a gilded pagoda; somewhere the bleak silver stars are gleaming on the white sands where a magic caravan is sleeping out in the ages. Somewhere the night wind is blowing through the grass of a mysterious grave. ”

“ The moon’s rays are wonderfully strong, making midnight seem as light as an ordinary overcast midday in temperate climes. The great clearness of the atmosphere probably accounts for our having eight hours of twilight with a beautiful soft golden glow to the northward. ”

“ Midnight showed keen interest in this new world. It was a white world, a silent world of snow and green spruce. The biting cold made him plunge through the deep drifts and snort eagerly. One other dweller of the high country, who could not sleep through the cold months, came to the meadow. An old timber-line buck had chosen to stay in the high mesa country defying the cold and the snow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And this is called midday, even though as a matter of fact the real midday at different places may be earlier or later.
As we journey east across the world, however, we are constantly going forward to meet the sun. We are not only on the earth, which is turning round all the time, but we are going ahead ourselves as well, and out-running the earth, and so we arrive at noon sooner and sooner each day. Our watches of course take no heed of real time as judged by the sun, they are just mechanical and tick away their sixty minutes to each hour whether the sun is overhead or not. ”

“ The gradual transition from the light of day to the darkness of the night, and from the darkness of the night to the light of day, is called twilight, and is due to the diffusion of light from the upper layers of the atmosphere after the sun has ceased to shine on the lower layers at night, or before it has begun to shine on them in the morning. ”

“ But while witches and other murderers commit their evil deeds under cover of night, the shadow-slayer chooses the day and often the noonday. Many a man has lost his shadow at noonday—not so difficult to understand if it be remembered that we are speaking of the tropics, where, at certain seasons, the sun at noonday is directly overhead. ”

“ The general aspect of midnight is calm and solemn; the lulled spirits unconsciously are subdued by the deep repose. Not so this night. The keen air from the water made exercise necessary to circulate the blood; and somewhat of cheerful exertion is connected with a fresh gale and a quick walk. ”

“ It is there that he gazes upon the gorgeous sunset,—the evening star following with silvery lamp the fading day, or the moon showering her pale lustre through the balmy night air, with a fancy that kindles and soars into the heavens before him,—there, that we have all felt the charm of woods and green fields, and solitary boughs waving in the golden sunshine, or darkening in the melancholy beauty of evening shadows. ”

“ I says in a whisper to Measles. I didn’t say anything else, for he knew what I meant. “Now then—now then!”
“Well,” says Measles, then in a whisper, “I s’pose women and children will bring the soft out of a man at a time like this; but, cuss him! what did he mean by humbugging us like that!”
I should think Colonel Maine stood alone thoughtful and still in that courtyard, with the sun beating down upon his muslin-covered forage-cap, while you could slowly, and like a pendulum-beat, count thirty. ”

“ I love it so much that I am loath to confess that sometimes the evening light is even more beautiful. Yet is there a softness that comes with the close of day, a glorification of common things, a drawing of purple shadows over all that is rough or unsightly, which makes the early evening perhaps the most perfect time of all the perfect hours. ”

“ We see the stars at all hours of the night, in all degrees of brilliancy, fading away at the approach of dawn, gradually appearing as twilight comes on, shining with splendor on a moonless night, keenly sparkling after the winds have cleared the atmosphere, or eclipsed by the greater effulgence of the moon. ”

“ Light comes before three o'clock in the morning, and it lasts, through a dreamy and lovely gloaming, till nearly ten o'clock at night. The morning sky is usually light blue, dappled with slate-coloured clouds. ”