midnight
After assimilating , by constant sober regulation of conduct , the products and the ideas of its masters and its neighbors , this country of Flanders , by nature so tame and devoid of poetry , worked out for itself an original existence , with characteristic manners and customs which bear no signs of servile imitation . Art stripped off its ideality and produced form alone . We may seek in vain for plastic grace , the swing of comedy , dramatic action , musical genius , or the bold flight of ode and epic . On the other hand , the people are fertile in discoveries , and trained to scientific discussions which demand time and the midnight oil . All things bear the ear-mark of temporal enjoyment . There men look exclusively to the thing that is : their thoughts are so scrupulously bent on supplying the wants of this life that they have never risen , in any direction , above the level of this present earth . The sole idea they have ever conceived of the future is that of a thrifty , prosaic statecraft : their revolutionary vigor came from a domestic desire to live as they liked , with their elbows on the table , and to take their ease under the projecting roofs of their own porches .