y, even in the
journals themselves. People begin to feel that all questions of
education, government, childhood, and womanhood, turn on that one
ruling and underlying question. As God is, so must the world be.

From this we gather that the times are ripe.

* * * * *

So near, indeed, is that religious dayspring that I seemed momently to
see it breaking over the desert where I brought this book to an end.

How full of light, how rough and beautiful looked this desert of mine!
I had made my nest on a rock in the mighty roadstead of Toulon, in a
lowly villa surrounded with aloe and cypress, with the prickly pear
and the wild rose. Before me was a spreading basin of sparkling sea;
behind me the bare-topt amphitheatre, where, at their ease, might sit
the Parliament of the world.

This spot, so very African, bedazzles you in the daytime with
flashings as of steel. But of a winter morning, especially in
December, it seemed full of a divine mystery. I was wont to rise
exactly at six o'clock, when the signal for work was boomed from the
Arsenal gun. From six to seven I enjoyed a delicious time of it. The
quick--may I call it piercing?--twinkle of the stars made the moon
ashamed, and fought against the daybreak. Before its coming, and
during the struggle between two lights, the wonderful clearness of the
air would let things be seen and heard at incredible distances. Two
leagues away I could make everything out. The smallest detail about
the distant mountains, a tree, a cliff, a house, a bend in the ground,
was thrown out with the most delicate sharpness. New senses seemed to
be given me. I found myself another being, released from bondage, free
to soar away on my new wings. It was an hour of utter purity, all hard
and clear. I said to myself, "How is this? Am I still a man?"

An unspeakable bluish hue, respected, left untouched by the rosy dawn,
hung round me like a sacred ether, a spirit that made all things
spiritual.

One felt, however, a forward movement, through changes soft and slow.
The great marvel was drawing nearer, to shine forth and eclipse all
other things. It came on in its own calm way: you felt no wish to
hurry it. The coming transfiguration, the expected witcheries of the
light, took not a whit away from the deep enjoyment of being still
under the divinity of night, still, as it were, half-hidden, and slow
to emerge from so wonderful a spell.... Come forth, O Sun! We worshi