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In that world Macaulay found Rogers, with his phosphorescent and corpse-like brilliancy; there he found Sydney Smith, bursting with crackers of common sense, an admirable old heathen; there he found Tom Moore, the romantic of the Regency, a shortened shadow of Lord Byron. That he reached this platform and remained on it is, I say, typical of a turning-point in the century.
I have heard it said that, deep down in coal mines, certain of the workers have seen wondrous sights; that when they have been alone in a drift, they have heard the blowing of the wind and the rustling of leaves, and suddenly found themselves penned in on all sides by the naked trunks of enormous primitive trees, lepidodendrons, sigillarias, ferns, and other plants, that have shone out with phosphorescent grandeur amid the inky blackness of the subterranean ether.
The tumult and the din grew rapidly louder, and at length became so terrific that he sat upright, and strained his eyes in the direction from which it came. Peering thus through the darkness, he saw the glow of phosphorescent waves wrought out of the strife of many waters; and they threw towards him, amid the darkness, a baleful gleam which fascinated his eyes.
Out through the hall they went, down through the park, and on and on by ways the attorney did not know, until at last they arrived at a little dell. The night was pitchy dark, and nothing could Ezekiel see but the ghostly figure gliding along ahead of him, all lit by a weird phosphorescent light. In the dell was a small granite cairn, and here the ghost stopped and looked around for the attorney.
She was slim and tall, about twenty-seven years of age, with beautiful black hair and finely-formed features. Her almond-shaped eyes were likewise dark, but had a phosphorescent gleam, which gave her the name of Luciola, or the fire-fly. She was dressed in a red satin dress, and wore a jaunty black felt hat.
But had he called in tones of thunder he would not have been heard in the roar of the wind and crash of the surf. As he reached the shore he saw faintly on the phosphorescent foam a something that climbed a hill of water; it was lost over its crest and reappeared on the wave beyond; it showed for a moment on the third wave, then it vanished in the night. "Josiah!" It was a long, querulous cry.
I'm going to stable my five nags my five wits!" he explained with a sneer as the other regarded him with all the bovine intelligence of one of his own stable-boys "because they're foundered; and that's the why, young four-in-hand!" He left the bar, adding as he passed: "I'm a rotting citizen, but you" he laughed insolently "you have become phosphorescent!"
Astern was a white, self-luminous wake that narrowed to a point in the distance before it had lost its phosphorescent glow. Florrie was interested only in the glorious picture as a whole. Denman, equally impressed, was interested in the somewhat rare spectacle of a craft meeting at forty knots a sea running at twenty; for not a drop of water hit the deck where they stood.
I had seen such phosphorescent ghosts before and I had but to step boldly forward and give the stub a kick to send the spectre flying in fragments that dropped like huge glowworms in chunks to the sodden ground. Often in a northeast rain after long drought a rotten birch stump will thus glow with phosphorescent fire producing a most formidable and tradition-satisfying ghost.
His long beard floated like a white cloud upon the star-like clusters of jewels constellating the orphrey robe fitting tightly over his breast. Around this form, frozen into the immobile, sacerdotal, hieratic pose of a Hindoo god, burned perfumes wafting aloft clouds of incense which were perforated, like phosphorescent eyes of beasts, by the fiery rays of the stones set in the throne.
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