And, in the midst of this storm, the night came; and then, within the
space of another minute, the storm had passed, and there was only the
constant 'blur' of the world-noise on my hearing. Overhead, the stars
were sliding quickly Westward; and something, mayhaps the particular
speed to which they had attained, brought home to me, for the first
time, a keen realization of the knowledge that it was the world that
revolved. I seemed to see, suddenly, the world--a vast, dark
mass--revolving visibly against the stars.
The dawn and the sun seemed to come together, so greatly had the speed
of the world-revolution increased. The sun drove up, in one long, steady
curve; passed its highest point, and swept down into the Western sky,
and disappeared. I was scarcely conscious of evening, so brief was it.
Then I was watching the flying constellations, and the Westward
hastening moon. In but a space of seconds, so it seemed, it was sliding
swiftly downward through the night-blue, and then was gone. And, almost
directly, came the morning.
And now there seemed to come a strange acceleration. The sun made one
clean, clear sweep through the sky, and disappeared behind the Westward
horizon, and the night came and went with a like haste.
As the succeeding day, opened and closed upon the world, I was aware of
a sweat of snow, suddenly upon the earth. The night came, and, almost
immediately, the day. In the brief leap of the sun, I saw that the snow
had vanished; and then, once more, it was night.
Thus matters were; and, even after the many incredible things that I
have seen, I experienced all the time a most profound awe. To see the
sun rise and set, within a space of time to be measured by seconds; to
watch (after a little) the moon leap--a pale, and ever growing orb--up
into the night sky, and glide, with a strange swiftness, through the
vast arc of blue; and, presently, to see the sun follow, springing out
of the Eastern sky, as though in chase; and then again the night, with
the swift and ghostly passing of starry constellations, was all too much
to view believingly. Yet, so it was--the day slipping from dawn to dusk,
and the night sliding swiftly into day, ever rapidly and more rapidly.
The last three passages of the sun had shown me a snow-covered earth,
which, at night, had seemed, for a few seconds, incredibly weird under
the fast-shifting light of the soaring and falling moon. Now, however,
for a little space, the sky was hidden, by a sea of swaying,
leaden-white clouds, which lightened and blackened, alternately, with
the passage of day and night.
The clouds rippled and vanished, and there was once more before me, the
vision of the swiftly leaping sun, and nights that came and went
like shadows.
Faster and faster, spun the world. And now each day and night was
completed within the space of but a few seconds; and still the speed
increased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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