328 
SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [June 
hut, the elements without seemed desirous of celebrating 
the occasion with equal emphasis and greater decorum. 
The eastern sky was massed with swaying auroral light, 
the most vivid and beautiful display that I had ever seen — 
fold on fold the arches and curtains of vibrating luminosity 
rose and spread across the sky, to slowly fade and yet again 
spring to glowing life. 
The brighter light seemed to flow, now to mass itself 
in wreathing folds in one quarter, from which lustrous 
streamers shot upward, and anon to run in waves through 
the system of some dimmer figure as if to infuse new life 
within it. 
It is impossible to witness such a beautiful phenomenon 
without a sense of awe, and yet this sentiment is not 
inspired by its brilliancy but rather by its delicacy in light 
and colour, its transparency, and above all by its tremulous 
evanescence of form. There is no glittering splendour to 
dazzle the eye, as has been too often described ; rather 
the appeal is to the imagination by the suggestion of some- 
thing wholly spiritual, something instinct with a fluttering 
ethereal life, serenely confident yet restlessly mobile. 
One wonders why history does not tell us of ' aurora ' 
worshippers, so easily could the phenomenon be considered 
the manifestation of 1 god ' or 6 demon.' To the little 
silent group which stood at gaze before such enchantment 
it seemed profane to return to the mental and physical 
atmosphere of our house. Finally when I stepped within, 
I was glad to find that there had been a general movement 
bedwards, and in the next half-hour the last of the 
roysterers had succumbed to slumber. 
