Those are some of the lights of sunset, the
enfolding gleams that are on their way to death, and which yet
testify that the light which wanes and lapses here, drawn
reluctantly away from dark valley and sombre woodland, is yet
striding ahead over dewy uplands and breaking seas, past the
upheaving shoulder of the world.
But best of all the gifts of sunset to the spirit is the knowledge
that behind all the whirling web of daylight, beyond all the noise
and laughter and appetite and drudgery of life, lies the spirit of
beauty that cannot be always revealed or traced in the louder and
more urgent pageantry of the day. The sunset has the power of
weaving a subtle and remote mystery over a scene that by day has
nothing to show but a homely and obvious animation. I was
travelling the other day and passed, just as the day began to
decline, through the outskirts of a bustling, seaport town. It had
all the interest and curiosity of life. Crowded warehouses,
swinging up straw-packed crates into projecting penthouses;
steamers with red-stained funnels, open-mouthed tubes, gangways,
staircase heads, dangling boats, were moored by bustling wharves.
One could not divine the use of half the strangely shaped objects
with which the scene was furnished, or what the business could be
of all the swarming and hurrying figures. Deep sea-horns blew and
whistles shrilled, orders were given, hands waved. It was life at
its fullest and busiest, but it was life demanding and enforcing
its claim and concealing its further purposes.
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