Project Gutenberg's An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition, by F. W. Bain

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Title: An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition

Author: F. W. Bain

Release Date: March 7, 2004 [EBook #11499]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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AN ESSENCE OF THE DUSK

_Love turns venom, now I see,
Flouted Beauties vipers be._

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

BY

F.W. BAIN

DEDICATED TO THE OTHER SEX.

PREFACE.

More generally known, perhaps, than any other Hindoo legend, is the
story of the demon, RAHU, who brings about ECLIPSES, by devouring the
Sun and Moon. For when the gods had upchurned the nectar, the delectable
Butter of the Brine, Rahu's mouth watered at the very sight of it: and
"in the guise of a god" he mingled unperceived among them, to partake.
But the Sun and Moon, the watchful Eyes of Night and Day, detected him,
and told Wishnu, who cast at him his discus, and cut his body from his
head: but not until the nectar was on the way down his throat. Hence,
though the body died, the head became immortal: and ever since, a thing
unique, "no body and all head," a byword among philosophers, he takes
revenge on Sun and Moon, the great Taletellers, by "gripping" them in
his horrid jaws, and holding on, till he is tired, or can be persuaded
to let go. Hence, in some parts of India, the doleful shout of the
country people at eclipses: _Chor do! chor do[1]!_ and hence, also, the
primary and surface meaning of our title: _A Digit of the Moon in the
Demon's grip_: in plain English, _an eclipse of the moon_. And yet,
legend though it be, there is something in the old mythological way of
putting the case, which describes the situation in eclipses, far better
than our arid scientific prose. I shall not easily forget, how, as we
slid like ghosts at midnight, through the middle of the desert, along
the Suez Canal[2], I watched the ghastly pallor of the wan unhappy moon,
as the horrible shadow crept slowly over her face, stealing away her
beauty, and turning the lone and level sands that stretche