midnight
Why should not Earth 's own satellite , void , as yet , be on the resurrection of all flesh , the raft whereon to float away Earth 's evil ? Read of it astronomically ; think of it as connected with idols ; regard it as the ruler of earth 's night ; consider that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere ; and what is there in my fancy quite improbable ? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so , but only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto suggested . Think how that awful , melancholy eye looks down on deeds of darkness how many midnight crimes , murders , thefts , adulteries , and witchcrafts , that would have shrunk into nonentity from open , honest day , have paled the conscious Moon ! Add to all this , it is the only world , besides our own , whereof astronomers can tell us , It is fallen . Nothing were easier than to have made this book a long one ; but that was not the writer 's object : as well because of the musty Greek proverb about long books ; which in every time and country are sure never to be read through by one in a thousand ; as because it is always wiser to suggest than to exhaust a topic ; which may be as `` a fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself . '' The writer then intended only to touch upon a few salient points , and not to discuss every question , however they might crowd upon his mind : time and space alike with mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic : added to which , such a course seemed to be unnecessary , as the rule of probability , thus illustrated , might be applied by others in every similar instance .