AT NIGHTFALL AND MIDNIGHT.

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At Nightfall and Midnight:

MUSINGS AFTER DARK.

BY

FRANCIS JACOX,

AUTHOR OF

"CUES FROM ALL QUARTERS,' "ASPECTS OF AUTHORSHIP,"
"TRAITS OF CHARACTER," ETC.

"In the TWILIGHT, in the EVENING, in the black and dark NIGHT.”

Prov. vii. 9

"In the gloaming came the musings that take form with waning light;
And they sadden'd, and they darken'd, as eve sadden'd into night."
Nicias Foxcar.

London:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27 & 31, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXIII.

270. f. 381.

BUTLER & TANNER,

THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,

Frome, and LONDON.

CONTENTS.

I. TWILIGHT:

Crepuscular effects in the Poets.-Abstracting power of Twilight.
-Sunset and Gloaming.-Eve saddening into Night.-Tran-
quillizing twilight-the Twilight of Dawn.-The distinction,
with a difference, between the two Twilights-the 'innocent
brightness of a new-born day.'-De Quincey on Daybreak.-
Looking forward and looking back.-The birth of Day, and
its death.

PAGE

I-33

II. HOMEWARDS AT NIGHTFALL, AND HOME FOR THE NIGHT:

The labourer's welcome home at eventide.-The Cottar's Satur-

day Night.-Illustrations from Cobbett, Gray, Dr. Holland,

Richter, Byron, Mrs. Norton, Scott, Wordsworth

III. SHADOWS:

34--42

Philosophy and poetry of shadows.-Citations from Dante,

Dryden, Swift, George Eliot, Hawthorne, etc.-Shadows in

Shakspeare, Queen Elizabeth, etc.-Grotesque shadows.-

Shadows in song, fable, and romance.-'

-The Shadowless Man

and his congeners.-Spectre shadows-the shadow of death 43-65

IV. A MOONLIGHT RIDE WITH WORDSWORTH:

Wordsworth's Lucy.—-‘If Lucy should be dead !'—Anticipatory
misgivings on nearing home.-In suspense between hope and
fear.-Afraid to knock at the door.-Coming home to be
homeless.-Forebodings on the threshold.-Wordsworth's
Leonard in the churchyard, Tennyson's Enoch Arden in the
street, Patmore's angel in the house.
66-80

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