The Midnight Sun. 105 



of heat, for we could stare him in the face without winking. He 

 appeared to me to go down about due north, and, without rising 

 or sinking,* for nearly an hour, to travel eastwards, when he 

 gradually" rose and assumed his wonted splendour." We thus 

 see that Longfellow is in error when he represents a person 

 looking " southward " for the Midnight Sun, as both theory 

 and observation show it is seen in the north. 



The author continues, in language which is worth quoting : — 

 "Never did I feel my own insignificance so much as 

 when I descended the fell, and left this grand scene behind 

 me. Place man in cities among his finest works of art, among 

 his manufactories and machinery; bid him jostle his way 

 through the human crowd among whom he lives, and his lip 

 may curl with pride and self-satisfaction as he gazes triumph- 

 antly on some master-stroke of ingenuity, or chuckles at the 

 success of some mighty speculation. It is then that he rises, 

 as it were, in his own estimation, superior to his fellow man, 

 and for the moment seems almost to forget that he is mortal. 

 But place such an one in a scene like this at the hour of mid- 

 night, and let him see if his self-pride will not receive a check ! 

 He will now be able to compare the most stupendous works of 

 his hands with the works of Nature, and then let him strike a 

 balance. His choicest works of art can scarcely vie in beauty 

 with the meanest wild flower he heedlessly crushes under foot, 

 and as for his boasted superiority over his fellow man, why, in 

 this rude spot the little untaught Laplander is worth a dozen of 

 him." 



Perhaps one of the most unlikely places to expect the Mid- 

 night Sun to make its appearance would seem to be the pages 

 of Thomas Carlyle, but, strangely enough, in Sartor JResartus 

 he conducts his clothes philosopher, Teuflesdrockh, to the soli- 

 tude of the North Cape, on a June midnight, and writes (with 

 which we must conclude) thus : — " Silence as of death — for 

 midnight, even in the Arctic latitudes, has its character : 

 nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged; the peaceful 

 gurgle of that slow, heaving polar ocean, over which, in the 

 utmost north, the great sun hangs low and lazy, as if he, too, 

 were slumbering. Yet is his cloud couch wrought of crimson 

 and cloth of gold ; yet does his light stream over the mirror of 

 waters like a tremulous fire pillar, skirting downwards to the 

 abyss, and hide itself under my feet. In such moments, solitude 



* This is probably due to the effect of refraction, which, as the sun approached 

 the dense lower strata of the atmosphere near the hoi'izon, would tend to raise his 

 disc very considerably, and the lower part to a greater extent than the upper. 

 For an explanation of refraction, and any other technical astronomical terms used 

 in this paper, the reader may consult the article on Precession previously 

 referred to. 



