THE NIGHT. 177 
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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