. Thus did I prove the variations of the ellipse and show Hassan Sabah to be the mule he is. Then rested, pacing my roof even to the rising of the morning star, which burned red above the Sultan’s turret. To bed, satisfied with this night.”
Northern literature has never taken the roof seriously. There have been many books written from the viewpoint of windows. The study window is usual. Then there is the college window and the Thrums window. Also there is a window viewpoint as yet scarcely expressed; that of the boy of Stevenson’s poems with his nose flattened against the glass—convalescence looking for sailormen with one leg. What is “Un Philosophe sous les Toits” but a garret and its prospect? But does Souvestre ever go up on the roof? He contents himself with opening his casement and feeding crumbs to the birds. Not once does he climb out and scramble around the mansard. On wintry nights neither his legs nor thoughts join the windy devils that play tempest overhead. Then again, from Westminster bridges, from country lanes, from crowded streets, from ships at sea, and mountain tops have sonnets been thrown to the moon; not once from the roof.
Is not this neglect of the roof the chief reason why we Northerners fear the night? When darkness is concerned, the cowardice of our poetry is notorious. It skulks, so to speak, when beyond the glare of the street lights. I propound it as a question for scholars.
’Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.
Why is the night conceived as the time for the bogey to be abroad?—an
… evil thing that walks by night,
In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen,