midnight
It was as though a spark should catch and glow and creep along the foot of some heavy and almost incombustible wall-hanging , and the room itself be scarce menaced . Yet a little after , and the whole East glowed with gold and scarlet , and the hollow of heaven was filled with the daylight . The isle -- the undiscovered , the scarce believed in -- now lay before them and close aboard ; and Herrick thought that never in his dreams had he beheld anything more strange and delicate . Stevenson 's similes , instead of illustrating concrete things by others less concrete , often reverse the process , as in the following : `` The isle at this hour , with its smooth floor of sand , the pillared roof overhead and the pendant illumination of the lamps , wore an air of unreality , like a deserted theater or a public garden at midnight . '' Every image gets its foothold in some tap-root of reality . The place of Robert Louis Stevenson is not explained by emphasizing the perfection of his technique . Artist he is , but more : a vigorous modern mind with a definite and enheartening view of things , a philosophy at once broad and convincing .