That which we measure is not the rapidity of light, but simply the resistance that its surroundings oppose to it, while transforming it. And visibility itself is only one of the properties of light; differing with different subjects. HOURS IN THE GARDEN There are people whose eyes alone are sensitive to light; and to them, for the most part, the sun is but a free lantern, by whose light every one carries on his especial work; the writer with his pen, the farmer with his ox. But I absorb the light with my eyes and ears, my mouth and nose, and all the pores of my skin. Like a fish, I float in it and I drink it in. Just as they say the fires of morning and afternoon will ripen wine that is exposed in bottles, as though it were still the grapes on the vine; so the sunlight penetrates my blood and clears my brain. Rejoice in this tranquil and piercing hour! I am like seaweed in the current, moored only by a thread, its weight floating on the water,--or like the Australian palm; a tuft with great swaying leaves, high upon a tall trunk,--which last, flecked with the gold of evening, curl, wave, and uncurl with the outspread balance of wide and supple wings. The formidable aloe sprang, undoubtedly, from one of the dragon’s teeth that Cadmus sowed over the Theban field. The sun drew this warrior from a ferocious soil. It has a heart of sword-blades, a flowering of glaucous thongs, belts, and straps. Sentinel of solitude, color of the sea and the sword, its artichoke bristles on all sides with enormous poniards. Persistently it upraises its harrows, rank after rank, until, having flowered, it dies; and from its heart springs a flower like a post, like a candelabra, like a standard driven into the final corpse!