From whatever cause, then, whether of fault, of natural law, or of
supernal will, the flush that seemed to promise the dawn of an eternal
day, shrinks and fades, though, with him, like the lagging skirt of the
sunset in the northern west, it does not vanish, but travels on, a
withered pilgrim, all the night, at the long last to rise the aureole of
the eternal Aurora. And now new paths entice him--or old paths opening
fresh horizons. With stronger thews and keener nerves he turns again to
the visible around him. The changelessness amid change, the law amid
seeming disorder, the unity amid units, draws him again. He begins to
descry the indwelling poetry of science. The untiring forces at work in
measurable yet inconceivable spaces of time and room, fill his soul with
an awe that threatens to uncreate him with a sense of littleness; while,
on the other side, the grandeur of their operations fills him with such
an informing glory, the mere presence of the mighty facts, that he no
more thinks of himself, but in humility is great, and knows it not. Rapt
spectator, seer entranced under the magic wand of Science, he beholds
the billions of billions of miles of incandescent vapour begin a slow,
scarce perceptible revolution, gradually grow swift, and gather an awful
speed.
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