Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/124

   troops and a detachment of redcoats under a commander of the fine old British name of Knyphausen. As we whirred down to the Lincoln Drive and I commented on the lavender haze that overhung the steep slopes of the glen, the Soothsayer said: "Ah, but you should have seen it two weeks ago. The trees were like a cashmere shawl!"

I shall have to wait fifty weeks before I can see the Wissahickon in a way that will content the fastidious Soothsayer.



gifts to earth, the first and greatest was darkness. Darkness preceded light, you will remember, in Genesis. Perhaps that is why darkness seems to man natural and universal. It requires no explanation and no cause. We postulate it. Whereas light, being to our minds merely the cleansing vibration that dispels the black, requires some origin, some lamp whence to shine. From the appalling torch of the sun down to the pale belly of the glowworm we deem light a derivative miracle, proceeding from some conceivable source. We can conceive darkness without thought of light; but we cannot conceive light without darkness. Day is but an interval between two nights. In other words, darkness is a matter which includes light just as the conception of a joke includes that of humor. One can think (alas!) of jokes without 