utlandish
gesticulations. It is certainly the time when unlawful thoughts and
words come to men most readily and naturally. Night brings forth many
things that daylight starts from. The real power of darkness lies not
in merely baffling the eyesight, but in creating the feeling of
darkness in the soul. The chains of light are broken, and we can
almost believe our internal night to be as impenetrable to God's eyes
as that external, to our own!

By and by Helwyse thought he would find some snug place and sit down.
The cabin of the "Empire State" was built on the main deck, abaft the
funnel, like a long, low house. Between the stern end of this house
and the taffrail was a small space, thickly grown with camp-stools.
Helwyse groped his way thither, got hold of a couple of the
camp-stools, and arranged himself comfortably with his back against
the cabin wall. The waves bubbled invisibly in the wake beneath. After
sitting for a while in the dense blackness, Helwyse began to feel as
though his whole physical self were shrivelled into a single atom,
careering blindly through infinite space!

After all, and really, was he anything more? If he chose to think not,
what logic could convince him of the contrary? Visible creation, as
any child could tell him, was an illusion,--was not what it seemed to
be. But this darkness was no illusion! Why, then, was it not the only
reality? and he but an atom, charged with a vital power of so-called
senses, that generally deceived him, but sometimes--as now--let him
glimpse the truth? The fancy, absurd as it was, had its attraction for
the time being. This great living, staring world of men and things is
a terrible weight to lug upon one's back. But if man be an invisible
atom, what a vast, wild, boundless freedom is his! Infinite space is
wide enough to cut any caper in, and no one the wiser.

One would like to converse with a man who had been born and had lived
in solitude and darkness. What original views he would have about
himself and life! Would he think himself an abstract intelligence,
out of space and time? What a riddle his physical sensations would be
to him! Or, suppose him to meet with another being brought up in the
same way; how they would mystify each other! Would they learn to feel
shame, love, hate? or do the passions only grow in sunshine? Would
they ever laugh? Would they hatch plots against each other, lie,
deceive? Would they have secrets from each other?

But, fancy