Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

278 A Plea for Gas Lamps
kites to catch and domesticate the wildfire
of the storm. Yet here we have the levin
brand at our doors, and it is proposed that
we should henceforward take our walks
abroad in the glare of permanent lightning.
A man need not be very superstitious if he
scruple to follow his pleasures by the light of
the Terror that Flieth, nor very epicurean if
he prefer to see the face of beauty more
becomingly displayed. That ugly blinding
glare may not improperly advertise the
home of slanderous Figaro^ which is a back-
shop to the infernal regions ; but where soft
joys prevail, where people are convoked to
pleasure and the philosopher looks on smiling
and silent, where love and laughter and
deifying wine abound, there, at least, let the
old mild lustre shine upon the ways of man.
Printed by R, & R. Clark, Edinburgh