Sun corona

“ Tall peaks ahead burst into blazing pinpoints, their blinding splendor deepening the shadows beyond the on-rushing terminator to Stygian inkiness. Dazzling white crawled down the nearing spires and suddenly the sun's corona smote them like a blow with its glory. ”

“ It is therefore held to be produced by the minute particles thrown off the sun, through those coronal wings and streamers which are visible only during solar eclipses.
The careful study of the solar phenomena has very clearly established the fact that none of the sun's envelopes, from the reversing layer to the corona itself, is in any sense an atmosphere. The combination of enormous gravitative force with an amount of heat which turns all the elements into the liquid or gaseous state, leads to consequences which it is difficult for us to follow or comprehend. ”

“ Then out upon the darkness, gruesome but sublime, flashes the glory of the incomparable corona, a silvery, soft, unearthly light, with radiant streamers, stretching at times millions of uncomprehended miles into space, while the rosy, flaming protuberances skirt the black rim of the Moon in ethereal splendour. It becomes curiously cold, dew frequently forms, and the chill is perhaps mental as well as physical. ”

“ The appearances are for the most part as if the chromosphere was formed of jets of heated hydrogen ascending through the interspaces between the photospheric clouds, like flames playing over a coal-fire.
"The corona also rests on the photosphere, . . . but extends to a far greater elevation than even the prominences ever reach, and seems to be not wholly gaseous, but to contain, besides the hydrogen and the mysterious 'coronium,' dust and fog of some sort, perhaps meteoric." ”

“ More disease germs exist in river water in winter than in summer, which may be due to the greater disinfecting power of the sun’s rays during summer.
Dust Motes of the Air. As the earth pursues its course about the sun, dust rains into its atmosphere from outer space. Meteors that are burned through the heat generated by striking into our air contribute to the supply, as do volcanoes, combustion, spray from the ocean, and matter lifted up by the action of the wind. ”

“ The pale, cold light of the winter sunset did not beautify—it was like the light of truth itself. When the smoky clouds hung low in the west and the red sun went down behind them, leaving a pink flush on the snowy roofs and the blue drifts, then the wind sprang up afresh, with a kind of bitter song, as if it said: ‘This is reality, whether you like it or not. All those frivolities of summer, the light and shadow, the living mask of green that trembled over everything, they were lies, and this is what was underneath. ”

“ Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be;
Rest, little young one, rest; what is’t that aileth thee?
What is it thou wouldst seek? what is wanting to thy heart?
Thy limbs are they not strong? And beautiful thou art:
This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers;
And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears!
If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain;
This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain!
For rain and mountain storms, the like thou need’st not fear;
The rain and storm are things that scarcely can come here. ”

“ About noon, as nearly as we could guess, our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun. It gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow without reflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a dim, sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean. ”

“ And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men. ”

“ But to-night the sun dies under the western sea, and an azure which is neither light nor darkness, fills the void. The stars discover through it their happy images below, and our throbbing oars—oars no longer, but living light—rival the pulsations of the stars. ”

“ And by God, what a day! You know the kind of day that generally comes some time in March when winter suddenly seems to give up fighting. For days past we'd been having the kind of beastly weather that people call 'bright' weather, when the sky's a cold hard blue and the wind scrapes you like a blunt razor-blade. Then suddenly the wind had dropped and the sun got a chance. You know the kind of day. Pale yellow sunshine, not a leaf stirring, a touch of mist in the far distance where you could see the sheep scattered over the hillsides like lumps of chalk. ”

“ So all night long the storm roared on:
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature’s geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
13
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,—
A universe of sky and snow! ”

“ In the court within, and on the bridge without, the air grew purple, and dark, and misty; for the sun had long gone down, and the light from the wax torches, leaping, flaming and flickering in the evening breeze, grew stronger and yellower under the gateway than the twilight without. The dark-robed monks looked gravely on, waiting till they should be told to pass into the chapel—men of all ages and looks, red and pale, thin and stout, dark and fair, but all having that something in their faces that marks the churchman from century to century. ”

“ It was one of those rare and beautiful days in winter when England remembers that there is a sun. The star of day, pale but nevertheless still splendid, was setting in the horizon, glorifying at once the heavens and the sea with bands of fire, and casting upon the towers and the old houses of the city a last ray of gold which made the windows sparkle like the reflection of a conflagration. ”

“ When the sun rises in splendour above the eastern horizon, tinting the sky with varied colours, lighting up the clouds which till then have been but dark patches on the heavens, bringing out the colours of hill and dale, rock and river, fields and woods, the heart gladdens at the spectacle. A pleasing melancholy falls on us as the light fades away at eventide, tint after tint vanishing, until at length the gloom of night enshrouds all. ”

“ The sun is perpetually raising enormous quantities of vapour from the ocean which the trade-winds carry to the equator: it is condensed when it rises with the air into the higher strata, and forms a ring of clouds along the southern side of the belt of equatorial calms that surrounds the earth, which, during the day, is perpetually pouring down torrents of rain, while the sun continually beating upon its upper surface dissolves the clouds into invisible vapour which is carried by the winds and condensed into rain on the extra-tropical regions. ”

“ It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy. ”

“ Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me,
If I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me. ”

“ "It was what should have been a bright summer day, but the smoke from the burning world filled the sky, through which the sun shone murkily, a dull and lifeless orb, blood-red and ominous. ”

“ "Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in rooms if you are ill."
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary. ”

“ Visions of love-awaking females flit before his drooping eye-lids, showing him such sights as might have once been seen in some cytherean temple.
All the girls whom he evokes are young and of entrancing beauty, but, unlike himself,—for love delights in contraries—most of them are slender, frail, as fair as moon-breams, as pliable as willow-boughs, as lithe as Elfland fairies, with complexions like the snows of Mount Rosa when flushed by the first faint rays of the dawning sun. ”

“ But now the great day which will dispel all doubt, and put an end to surmise, is approaching—that day which will destroy so many illusions and fulfill so few; for now the sun has given the last touch to the ripening grain, and soon the golden sheaves are lying piled together on the clean-shorn stubble-fields, only waiting to be carted away. ”

“ 14Do not fear the clouds and storm and rain; look at the bow in the cloud, in the very rain itself. That is a sign that the sun, though you cannot see it, is shining still—that up above, beyond the cloud, is still sunlight and warmth and cloudless blue sky. Believe in God’s covenant. Believe that the sun will conquer the clouds, warmth will conquer cold, calm will conquer storm, fair will conquer foul, light will conquer darkness, joy will conquer sorrow, life conquer death, love conquer destruction and the devouring floods; ”

“ The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.
The nightingale with feathers new she sings;
The turtle to her make hath told her tale.
Summer is come, for every spray now springs. ”

“ The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world. ”

“ The gulf that divides you from the distant mountain seems like a huge bite taken bodily out of the world by some voracious god; far away rise snow peaks such as were not dreamt of in your Swiss tour; the bottomless valley at your feet is misty and gloomy with blackness, streaked with mist, while the peaks above shoot gladly to the sun and catch his broadside rays like majestic white standards. ”

“ A great golden shield sails steadily in vast circles, sending back the sunlight in every tint of burnished glow. The golden eagle of the Himalayas hangs in mid-air, a sheet of polished metal to the eye, pausing sometimes in the full blaze of reflection, as ages ago the sun and the moon stood still in the valley of Ajalon; too magnificent for description, as he is too dazzling to look at. ”

“ The gray half-tones of daybreak are not the gray half-tones of the day’s close, though the degree of their shade may be the same. In the twilight of the morning, light seems active, darkness passive; in the twilight of evening it is the darkness which is active and crescent, and the light which is the drowsy reverse. ”

“ It is on December nights, when the thermometer is almost down at zero, that people think most of the sun. ”

“ There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle. ”

“ All hear of heights and of depths, but they here see what is high, and they tremble, and feel it to be deep. The awful rocks present their everlasting butments, the water murmurs and foams far below, and the two mountains rear their proud heads on each side, separated by a channel of sublimity. Those who view the sun, the moon, and the stars, and allow that none but God could make them, will here be impressed that none but an Almighty God could build a bridge like this. ”

“ The intensest feeling of the beauty of a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my knowing that the cloud is vapour of water, subject to all the laws of vapours in a state of suspension; and I am just as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws whenever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness. ”

“ The cyclone had set the house down, very gently—for a cyclone—in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. ”

“ Moreover to light a fire is the instinctive and resistant act of man when, at the winter ingress, the curfew is sounded throughout Nature. It indicates a spontaneous, Promethean rebelliousness against that fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death. Black chaos comes, and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light. ”

“ I do not marvel that the people of sun-lands do not greatly aspire, or labor, or achieve. What need of this threefold weariness, this getting of spiritual bread by spiritual brain-sweat, when happiness falls down upon their heads all day long out of the sky; when feeling, which is a thousand times better than thought, buds and blossoms out of every sunbeam, and night is but a sudden sigh, a languishing wink of this regal lover between caresses. ”

“ "I read somewhere that the sun's getting hotter every year," said Tom genially. "It seems that pretty soon the earth's going to fall into the sun—or wait a minute—it's just the opposite—the sun's getting colder every year." ”