midnight
His eye rested a moment on the square stone tower with its frosted cross that pointed to the sky : then travelled with a leap of many thousand feet to the enormous mountains that brushed the brilliant stars . Like a forest rose the huge peaks above the slumbering village , measuring the night and heavens . They beckoned him . And something born of the snowy desolation , born of the midnight and the silent grandeur , born of the great listening hollows of the night , something that lay ` twixt terror and wonder , dropped from the vast wintry spaces down into his heart -- and called him . Very softly , unrecorded in any word or thought his brain could compass , it laid its spell upon him . Fingers of snow brushed the surface of his heart . The power and quiet majesty of the winter 's night appalled him ... .