THE NIGHT. 



177 



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Heavy for all creatures is the gloom of evening, and even for the 

 protected. The Dutch painters have seized and expressed this truth 

 very forcibly in reference to the beasts grazing at liberty in the 

 meadows. The horse of his own accord draws near his companion, 

 and rests his head upon him. The cow, followed by her calf, returns 

 to the fence, and would fain find her way to the byre. For these 

 animals have a stable, a lodging, a shelter against nocturnal snares. 

 The bird has but a leaf for its roof ! 



How great, then, its happiness in the morning, when terrors 

 vanish, when the shadows fade away, when the smallest coppice 

 brightens and grows clear ! What chattering on the edge of every' 

 nest, what lively conversations ! It is, as it were, a mutual felicita- 

 tion at seeing one another again, at being still alive ! Then the songs 

 commence. From the furrow the lark mounts aloft, with a loud 

 hymn, and bears to heaven's gate the joy of earth. 



/As with the bird, so with man. Every line in the ancient Vedas 

 of India is a hymn to the light, the guardian of life to the sun which 



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