NEITHER SUNSET NOR SUNRISE. 83

ing of an hour for which we have no name, since
it is neither sunset nor sunrise, but the blended
loveliness of both, and shining at the same mo-
ment in the heat and splendour of noonday on the
Pacitic Isles.

his was the midnight sun as I had dreamed it—
as | had hoped to see it. Within fifteen minutes
after midnight there was a perceptible increase of
altitude, and in legs than half an hour the whole
sky had changed—the yellow brightening into
orange, and the saffron melting into the pale ver-
milion of dawn. - Yet it was neither the colours
nor the same character of light as we had had half
an hour before midnight. The difference was so
slight as scarcely to be described; but it was the
difference between evening and morning. The
faintest transfusion of one prevailing tint into
another had changed the whole expression of
heaven and earth, and so imperceptibly and mira-
culously that a new day was already present to
our consciousness. Our view of the wild cliffs
around, less than two hours before, belonged to
yesterday, though we had stood on deck, in full
sunshine, during all the intervening time. Let
those explain the phenomenon who can; but I
found my physical senses utterly at war with those
mental perceptions wherewith they should harmo-

nise. The eye saw hut one unending day; the
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