Article September 1, 2013

Night

Originally published in October 21, 1916 issue of The Christian Science Monitor

Every one knows that marvelous description of night, which the Herr Professor poured out, as he peered down, over the gabled roofs of the great spreading city, wrapped in smoke shot only with the dull gleam of fingers of lamplight. It is a terrible enough picture too, for it leaves the reader with a horrified sense of the vice and abandonment of a city under the cover of darkness. It is curious how from the beginning of time darkness and fear have gone hand in hand, so that they have, in all ages, been synonymous with evil. The ancient peoples of the east treated them as the equivalent of chaos, and it was this, unquestionably, that Milton had in mind when he wrote the familiar lines:

"A shout that tore hell’s concave, and beyond
Frightened the reign of Chaos and old Night."

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