And yet there are many who will
be ready to think that light is a very tame and feeble instrument,
because it is noiseless. An earthquake for example, is to them a much
more vigorous, and effective agency. Hear how it comes thundering
through the solid foundations of nature. It rocks a whole continent. The
noblest works of man--cities, monuments, and temples--are in a moment
levelled to the ground or swallowed down the opening gulfs of fire....
But lot the light of the morning cease, and return no more: let the
hour of morning come, and bring with it no dawn; the outcries of a
horror-stricken world fill the air, and make, as it were, the darkness
audible. The beasts go wild and frantic at the loss of the sun. The
vegetable growths turn pale and die. A. chill creeps on, and frosty
winds begin to howl across the freezing earth. Colder and yet colder
is the night. The vital blood, at length, of all creatures stops,
congealed. Down goes the frost toward the earth's centre. The heart of
the sea is frozen; nay, the earthquakes are themselves frozen in,
under their fiery caverns. The very globe itself, too, and all the
fellow-planets that have lost their sun, are become mere balls of ice,
swinging silent in the darkness. Such is the light which revisits us in
the silence of the morning.
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