104 With Feet to the Earth 



reflects nature. To live happily with it is 

 not so much a matter of knowledge as of 

 sympathy, which likewise qualifies us best 

 to live with men. 



We find in prowling at night a reversal 

 of many effects we are used to, a re- 

 versal as complete as that from light to 

 dark. This mass of masonry, three hun- 

 dred feet high, that by day seems to crush 

 the earth lo ! it is phantom architecture 

 now ; a cloud form beetling down from the 

 stars, and only a shade more tangible as it 

 descends into gaslight. Here is a row of 

 dwellings not yet roofed. By day it is 

 cheap. By night it is the walls of Troy. 

 Look along this avenue, where at noon the 

 ash-carts clatter and refuse blows into the 

 eyes : it is now a highway into fairy-land, 

 with a double row of white stars beaconing 

 the way. So the little square, so green, so 

 joyous in the sun, is now a space of blank- 

 ness and blackness, all its life of tree and 

 flower concealed or hinted merely in 

 crouching shapes and phosphor patches. 

 Distances are confused : the light twinkling 

 away up yonder, where the belated clerk 



