midnight
`` Why , you blockhead , there is no such thing in rerum natura . I have come three thousand miles , and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these mountains , and poke my head into every chasm , for the sole purpose of demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug ! '' Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the adventurers to the Crystal Hills ; but none so vain , so foolish , and so impious too , as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles . He was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to the darkness , instead of heavenward , and who , could they but extinguish the lights which God hath kindled for us , would count the midnight gloom their chiefest glory . As the Cynic spoke , several of the party were startled by a gleam of red splendor , that showed the huge shapes of the surrounding mountains and the rock-bestrewn bed of the turbulent river with an illumination unlike that of their fire on the trunks and black boughs of the forest trees . They listened for the roll of thunder , but heard nothing , and were glad that the tempest came not near them . The stars , those dial points of heaven , now warned the adventurers to close their eyes on the blazing logs , and open them , in dreams , to the glow of the Great Carbuncle .