Midnight
This was an outrage . The love born of beauty was not mine ; I had nothing in common with it : I could not dare to meddle with it , but another love , venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance , furnace-tried by pain , stamped by constancy , consolidated by affection 's pure and durable alloy , submitted by intellect to intellect 's own tests , and finally wrought up , by his own process , to his own unflawed completeness , this Love that laughed at Passion , his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction , in _ this _ Love I had a vested interest ; and whatever tended either to its culture or its destruction , I could not view impassibly . I turned from the group of trees and the `` merrie companie '' in its shade . Midnight was long past ; the concert was over , the crowds were thinning . I followed the ebb . Leaving the radiant park and well-lit Haute-Ville -LRB- still well lit , this it seems was to be a `` nuit blanche '' in Villette -RRB- , I sought the dim lower quarter . Dim I should not say , for the beauty of moonlight -- forgotten in the park -- here once more flowed in upon perception .