THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



out into the great out-of-doors of the universe. We 

 feel the infinite space, we confront the star-paved 

 abyss; the constellations shock us out of our prose 

 and humdrum; they reveal to us how wild and 

 terrific and unfathomable is the sea over which we 

 are voyaging. 



What does not the imagination of man, the spirit 

 of man owe to the night the revelation or the 

 apocalypse of the darkness? The night is spiritual; 

 how it hides all things secular, how it blots out the 

 common and the wearisome, how it stirs and stimu- 

 lates our religious emotions, how it nourishes our 

 sense of mystery, and of the profound ! It adds the 

 transcendental, the immeasurable, to our world. 

 It uncovers the heavens; they have a new meaning 

 when we have walked under them at night. 



I would not forget the debt we owe to the day; 

 life itself, and all that sustains it, light and warmth, 

 cloud and sun, brought us here and keep us here. 

 The gifts of the night are less tangible; the night 

 does not come with fruit and flowers and bread and 

 meat ; it comes with stars and star-dust, with mystery 

 and nirvana. 



I am a creature of the day; I belong to the open, 

 cheerful, optimistic day. Few of my habits or feel- 

 ings are nocturnal. I am not a prowler, nor a 

 burner of midnight oil, nor a lover of the spectral 

 or the obscure. I bring all things to the test of the 

 sunlight; my mind works best, and my faith is 



