Whether to manhood
hoary-headed in wisdom, or to childhood yet in soft-brained ignorance,
darkness is an unpleasant fact, to be got over in the best way
possible--to be got over at all events, and at any cost, and to be
turned into luminosity by every expedient that can be used.
Wax-tapers, to throw their soft, luxurious light on my lady's delicate
face, as she lies like a beautiful piece of marble-work on her dreamy
couch; shaded lamps for the grave merchant, the virtual king of the
present, as he sits in his still office, ruling nations by bale and
bond, and guiding the tide of events by invoices and ship's papers;
Palmer's candles, under green pent-houses, for students and authors,
whose eyes must withstand a double strain; the mild house-light, with
a dash of economy in the selection, whether of oil, sperm, long-fours,
or short-sixes, for the family group; the white camphene flame for the
artist: strange mechanisms for the curious; the flaunting brilliancy
of the coloured chandeliers and cut-glass shades for our English
Bedouins in the gin-palace; the flaring jet of the open butchers'
shops; the paper-lantern of the street-stalls; the consumptive dip of
the slop-worker; the glimmering rush-light for the sick-room; the
resin torch for the midnight funeral: these, and countless other
inventions--not to mention the universal gas--assert man's
disinclination to transact his life in the dark, or to bound his
powers by the simple arrangements of nature. There are better lights,
though, than any of these, and a worse than mere physical night, be it
the blackest with which romancer ever stained his innocent paper, when
describing those dark deeds on desolate moors which all romancers
delight in, and which send young ladies pale to bed. The night of the
mind is worse than the night of time; and lamps which can dispel this
are more valuable than any which make up for the loss of the sun only,
though these are grand undertakings too.

Most people know what a Child's night-light is, and most people have
heard of Belmont Wax, and Price's Patent Candles, though few would be
able to explain exactly what the warrant guards. But who ever pretends
to understand patents? The 'Belmont' every one knows; it is a mere
ordinary wax-candle, which perhaps does not 'gutter' so much as
others, and with wick more innocent of 'thieves' than most, but with
nothing more wonderful in appearance than an ordinary candle. A
Child's night-light, too,