midnight sun
That he was n't , that he was just her extraordinary equal and contemporary , this was what added to her act the long train of its effect . Light broke for him at last , indeed , quite as a consequence of the fear of breathing a chill upon this luxuriance of her spiritual garden . As at a turn of his labyrinth he saw his issue , which opened out so wide , for the minute , that he held his breath with wonder . He was afterwards to recall how , just then , the autumn night seemed to clear to a view in which the whole place , everything round him , the wide terrace where he stood , the others , with their steps , below , the gardens , the park , the lake , the circling woods , lay there as under some strange midnight sun . It all met him during these instants as a vast expanse of discovery , a world that looked , so lighted , extraordinarily new , and in which familiar objects had taken on a distinctness that , as if it had been a loud , a spoken pretension to beauty , interest , importance , to he scarce knew what , gave them an inordinate quantity of character and , verily , an inordinate size . This hallucination , or whatever he might have called it , was brief , but it lasted long enough to leave him gasping . The gasp of admiration had by this time , however , lost itself in an intensity that quickly followed -- the way the wonder of it , since wonder was in question , truly had been the strange DELAY of his vision .