Our fantastic civilization has fallen out of touch with many aspects of nature, and with none more completely than with night. Primitive folk, gathered at a cave mouth round a fire, do not fear night; they fear, rather, the energies and creatures to whom night gives power; we of the age of the machines, having delivered ourselves of nocturnal enemies, now have a dislike of night itself. With lights and ever more lights, we drive the holiness and beauty of night back to the forests and the sea; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it. Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of night? Do they fear that vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars? Having made themselves at home in a civilization obsessed with power, which explains its whole world in terms of energy, do they fear at night for their dull acquiescence and the pattern of their beliefs? Be the answer what it will, to-day's civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day. Henry Beston
About This Quote

On the old earth, there used to be two kinds of human beings. There were those who looked at night and saw in it a threat. They saw it not as a time for rest, but as the time when hideous things might come out to hunt them in their beds. And then there were those who just ignored it.

Night brought no evil, only sleep. The two kinds of people never met each other, because they lived on different planets. Modern civilization has made all humans live in artificial day, with artificial lights, artificial food, artificial peace of mind.

We are all living in daylight. And this is wrong. It is wrong to live in artificial light all day long.

It is wrong to trample on the night, the natural darkness. Because when you do, you are turning away from nature and turning away from God.

Source: The Outermost House: A Year Of Life On The Great Beach Of Cape Cod

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