[The Innocents Abroad Part 5 of 6 by Mark Twain]@TWC D-Link bookThe Innocents Abroad Part 5 of 6 CHAPTER XLVIII 20/20
But when the day is done, even the most unimpressible must yield to the dreamy influences of this tranquil starlight.
The old traditions of the place steal upon his memory and haunt his reveries, and then his fancy clothes all sights and sounds with the supernatural.
In the lapping of the waves upon the beach, he hears the dip of ghostly oars; in the secret noises of the night he hears spirit voices; in the soft sweep of the breeze, the rush of invisible wings.
Phantom ships are on the sea, the dead of twenty centuries come forth from the tombs, and in the dirges of the night wind the songs of old forgotten ages find utterance again. In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events; meet for the birth of a religion able to save a world; and meet for the stately Figure appointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high decrees.
But in the sunlight, one says: Is it for the deeds which were done and the words which were spoken in this little acre of rocks and sand eighteen centuries gone, that the bells are ringing to-day in the remote islands of the sea and far and wide over continents that clasp the circumference of the huge globe? One can comprehend it only when night has hidden all incongruities and created a theatre proper for so grand a drama..
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