136 



THE FASCINATION OF LIGHT 



Light has a strange fascination which takes hold 

 of all animated creatures, and commands a subtle 

 devotion that cannot be set forth in a confession of 

 faith. The delight of a boy in a bonfire is a breath 

 of the heaven that is about us in our infancy ♦ Though 

 it be but a heap of rubbish, revealed by the removal 

 of the mantle of snow, lighting up with flickering, 

 changing glow a rectangular door yard, the children 

 stand and gasje into the dancing flame, their vast, 

 distorted, ghostlike shadows lost in the night, their 

 faces reflecting every evanescent glare, and their 

 spirits charmed by the same spell that took form in 

 the fire-worship of their ancestors ♦ How they delight 

 in stirring up the embers and sending up a fountain 

 spray of sparks ! What joy in seeing the big sticks 

 break into glowing coals, darting out new tongues 

 of flame to lick up the escaping embers ! 



Fire is one of nature's universal fascinations. The 

 wildest and most wary animals approach and ga2;e 

 at it in the night, and though it sometimes warns 

 them off", it always holds them by a spelL The night 

 migrating birds perish in scores against the plate 

 glass of coast lighthouses, swerving from the control 

 of the all-powerful migratory instinct toward the 

 fascinating glare that is their destruction. It is not 

 sportsmanlike to hang a lantern in the marsh and 



