PURE AND REFLECTED LIGHT 
11 
pearl, and the glow is infinitely more delicate 
for its surrounding of translucent atmosphere. 
Yet the great vault is illumined, and, as the 
sun rises higher, far to the north and far to 
the south, half-way around the circle, a tapes- 
try of silver and gold is weaving on a blue-gray 
ground, and the dark ultramarine of the west 
turns a shade paler and seems to lift into 
space as the light grows stronger. How like 
the flooding of the tide this light drifts up, 
and in this great aérial ocean bringing with it 
warmth and color! Soundless and surgeless, 
rolling in waves too translucent to be seen, ris- 
ing higher and higher, yet meeting with no 
ultimate shore, how gloriously it sweeps up 
and over the world! How swiftly even the 
‘‘meagre cloddy earth” borrows a splendor 
from above and reflects the flush of light and 
color! The mists stir, the trees tremble gently, 
the dew slips from leaf to stem, and the whole 
globe seems to awaken from slumber. 
There is nothing more beautiful in all nature 
than this flooding of light across the sky, across 
the earth ; yet even as we watch it a great 
change takes place. The sun peers over the 
horizon and the first beam of light strikes 
full upon the mountain’s highest minaret of 
The flooding 
light. 
