nd speedy trains, with the planet
all the while whirling in the opposite direction, so that, for all their
hurry, they travel back-foremost through the universe of space.
Sometimes it comes by the spirit of delight, and sometimes by the spirit
of terror. At least, there will always be hours when we refuse to be put
off by the feint of explanation, nicknamed science; and demand instead
some palpitating image of our estate, that shall represent the troubled
and uncertain element in which we dwell, and satisfy reason by the means
of art. Science writes of the world as if with the cold finger of a
starfish; it is all true; but what is it when compared to the reality of
which it discourses? where hearts beat high in April, and death strikes,
and hills totter in the earthquake, and there is a glamour over all the
objects of sight, and a thrill in all noises for the ear, and Romance
herself has made her dwelling among men? So we come back to the old
myth, and hear the goat-footed piper making the music which is itself
the charm and terror of things; and when a glen invites our visiting
footsteps, fancy that Pan leads us thither with a gracious tremolo; or,
when our hearts quail at the thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves
that he has stamped his hoof in the nigh thicket.

XII

A PLEA FOR GAS LAMPS

Cities given, the problem was to light them. How to conduct individual
citizens about the burgess-warren, when once heaven had withdrawn its
leading luminary? or--since we live in a scientific age--when once our
spinning planet has turned its back upon the sun? The moon, from time to
time, was doubtless very helpful; the stars had a cheery look among the
chimney-pots; and a cresset here and there, on church or citadel,
produced a fine pictorial effect, and, in places where the ground lay
unevenly, held out the right hand of conduct to the benighted. But, sun,
moon, and stars abstracted or concealed, the night-faring inhabitant had
to fall back--we speak on the authority of old prints--upon stable
lanthorns two storeys in height. Many holes, drilled in the conical
turret-roof of this vagabond Pharos, let up spouts of dazzlement into
the bearer's eyes; and as he paced forth in the ghostly darkness,
carrying his own sun by a ring about his finger, day and night swung to
and fro and up and down about his footsteps. Blackness haunted his path;
he was beleaguered by