Nine o'clock
Long avenues opened out of it , precipitous deep cuttings leading into the night . The steep , shadowy masses of building seemed piled sky-high , like a city of the air ; here the gleam of some golden white façade , there some aerial battlement crowned with stars , with clusters , and points , and rings of flame that made a lucid twilight of the dark above them . Over all was an illusion of immensity . Nine o'clock of an April night -- the time when a great city has most power over those that love her ; the time when she lowers her voice and subdues her brilliance , intimating that she is not what she seems ; when she makes herself unearthly and insubstantial , veiling her grossness in the half-transparent night . Like some consummate temptress , she plays the mystic , clothing herself with light and darkness , skirting the intangible , hinting at the infinities , flinging out the eternal spiritual lure , so that she may better seduce the senses through the soul . And Rickman was too young a poet to distinguish clearly between his senses and his imagination , or his imagination and his soul . He stood in Piccadilly Circus and regarded the spectacle of the night .