No More Learning

I complain of arctic voyagers that they do not enough remind us of the
constant peculiar dreariness of the scenery, and the perpetual
twilight of the arctic night. So he whose theme is moonlight, though
he may find it difficult, must, as it were, illustrate it with the
light of the moon alone.

Many men walk by day; few walk by night. It is a very different
season. Take a July night, for instance. About ten o'clock,--when man
is asleep, and day fairly forgotten,--the beauty of moonlight is seen
over lonely pastures where cattle are silently feeding. On all sides
novelties present themselves. Instead of the sun there are the moon
and stars; instead of the wood thrush there is the whip-poor-will;
instead of butterflies in the meadows, fireflies, winged sparks of
fire! who would have believed it? What kind of cool deliberate life
dwells in those dewy abodes associated with a spark of fire? So man
has fire in his eyes, or blood, or brain. Instead of singing birds,
the half-throttled note of a cuckoo flying over, the croaking of
frogs, and the intenser dream of crickets. But above all, the
wonderful trump of the bullfrog, ringing from Maine to Georgia. The
potato vines stand upright, the corn grows apace, the bushes loom, the
grain-fields are boundless. On our open river terraces once cultivated
by the Indian, they appear to occupy the ground like an army, their
heads nodding in the breeze.
Small trees and shrubs are seen in the
midst overwhelmed as by an inundation. The shadows of rocks and trees,
and shrubs and hills, are more conspicuous than the objects
themselves. The slightest irregularities in the ground are revealed by
the shadows, and what the feet find comparatively smooth appears rough
and diversified in consequence. For the same reason the whole
landscape is more variegated and picturesque than by day. The smallest
recesses in the rocks are dim and cavernous; the ferns in the wood
appear of tropical size. The sweet-fern and indigo in overgrown
wood-paths wet you with dew up to your middle. The leaves of the shrub
oak are shining as if a liquid were flowing over them. The pools seen
through the trees are as full of light as the sky. "The light of the
day takes refuge in their bosoms," as the Purana says of the ocean.
All white objects are more remarkable than by day. A distant cliff
looks like a phosphorescent space on a hillside. The woods are heavy
and dark. Nature slumbers. You see the moonlight reflected from
particular stumps in the recesses of the forest, as if she selected
what to shine on. These small fractions of her light remind one of the
plant called moonseed,--as if the moon were sowing it in such places.

In the night the eyes are partly closed or retire into the head.