The night came down with leisurely gloom.

A dim starlight pervaded rather than shone in the sky; Nature seemed somnolent and gravely meditative.

It brooded as broods a man who is seeking his way through a labyrinth of ideas to a conclusion still evading him.

This sense of cogitation enveloped land and sea, and was as tangible to feeling as human presence.
At last the night seemed to wake from reverie.

A movement, a thrill, ran through the spangled vault of dusk and sleep, and seemed to pass over the world, rousing the sea and the earth.