noon
As if that Russian mountain , hewn asunder midway , were fitted flush to a Norwegian cliff , beetling precipitately over the whirlpool ; then tilt the sledge with its furred inmate over the slope , let it skim with quicker impetus the smoking ice , let it touch that beetling edge , and , leaping from the tangent , let it dart through the air , let it strike the eddying waters , be sucked hurriedly down that hoarse black throat , wind among the roots of the everlasting hills , and split upon the loadstone of the centre . Even such a fate , `` down , down to hell , '' will come to Simon Jennings ; wrapped in the furs of complacency , seated in the sledge of covetousness , a-down the slippery launch of well-worn evil habit -- over the precipice of crime -- into the billows of impenitent remorse -- to be swallowed by the vortex of Gehenna ! Night came , and with it all black thoughts . Not that they were black at once , any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon , without the intervening cloak of twilight . Oh dear , no ! Simon 's thoughts accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day . They had been , for him , at early morning , pretty middling white , that is whity-brown ; thence they passed , with the passing hour kindly , through the shades of burnt sienna , raw umber , and bistre ; until , just as we may notice in the case of marking-ink ; that which , five minutes ago , was as water only delicately dirtied , has become a fixed and indelible black .