Winter came and the city [Chicago] turned monochrome -- black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents The armorers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.
I died for beauty but was scarce Adjusted in the tomb, When one who died for truth was lain In an adjoining room. He questioned softly why I failed? "For beauty," I replied. "And I for truth, the two are one; We brethren are," he said. And so, as kinsmen met a night, We talked between the rooms, Until the moss had reached our lips, And covered up our names.
That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.
Let each one of us pray day and night for the downtrodden millions who are held fast by poverty, priestcraft, and tyranny. Pray day and night for them. I care more to preach religion to them than to the high and the rich.
Let us assume that entertainment is the sole end of reading; even so I think you would hold that no mental employment is so broadening to the sympathies or so enlightening to the understanding. Other pursuits belong not to all times, all ages, all conditions; but this gives stimulus to our youth and diversion to our old age; this adds a charm to success, and offers a haven of consolation to failure. Through the night-watches, on all our journeyings, and in our hours of ease, it is our unfailing companion.
You cannot lay remorse upon the innocent nor lift it from the heart of the guilty. Unbidden shall it call in the night, that men may wake and gaze upon themselves.
The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far we are pursued by nothing else.
If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the night, And by going wrong all things come right. Things have been mended that were worse, and the the worse, the nearer they are to mend.
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.
There were nights when he took a deal more rum and water than his head could carry; and then he would sometimes sit and sing his wicked old wild sea-songs, minding nobody... Often I have heard the house shaking with Yo-ho-ho and a bottle and rum, all the neighbours joining in for dear life with the fear of death upon them and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark. Fiften men on the dead man's chest, Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil have done for the rest. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
I have almost forgotten the taste of fears: The time has been, my senses would have cool’d to hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir as life were in’t: I have supt full with horrors; Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, cannot once start me.