Fountain of Light

“Fountain of Light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt’st
Thron’d inaccessible.”

—John Milton, from Paradise Lost, referring to the “Author of all Being”; quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

the colours as they parted fly

“Some range the colours as they parted fly,
Clear-pointed to the philosophic eye;
The flaming red, that pains the dwelling gaze,
The stainless, lightsome yellow’s gilding rays;
The clouded orange, that betwixt them glows,
And to kind mixture tawny lustre owes;
All-chearing green, that gives the spring its dye;
The bright transparent blue, that robes the sky;
And indico, which shaded light displays,
And violet, which in the view decays.”

—Richard Savage, from The Wanderer, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

the ruby lights

“At thee the ruby lights its deepening flow,
And with a saving radiance inward flames.
From thee the sapphire, solid ether, takes
Its hue cerulean; and, of evening tinct,
The purple-streaming amethyst is thine.
With thy own smile the yellow topaz burns;
Nor deeper verdure dyes the robe of Spring,
When first she gives it to the southern gale,
Than the green emerald shows. But, all combined,
Thick through the whitening opal play thy beams;
Or, flying from its surface, form
A trembling variance of revolving hues
As the site varies in the gazer’s hand.”

—James Thomson, from Summer, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

The milky way

“The milky way, whose stream of vivid light,
Pour’d from innumerable fountains round
Flows trembling, wave on wave, from sun to sun,
And whitens the long path to Heaven’s extreme.”

—David Mallet, from The Excursion, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

Powdered with stars

“A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear
Seen in the Galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powdered with stars.”

—John Milton, from Paradise Lost, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

imagine the diamonds!

the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses

“Our sight is the most perfect and most delightful of all our senses. . . . Our sight . . . may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch, that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies. . . . We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy that did not make its first entrance through the sight.”

—Joseph Addison, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

sad and fuscous colours

“Among colours, such as are soft and cheerful (except, perhaps, a strong red which is cheerful) are unfit to produce grand images. An immense mountain, covered with a shining green turf, is nothing, in this respect, to one dark and gloomy; the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue, and night more sublime and solemn than day. Therefore in historical painting, a gay or gaudy drapery can never have a happy effect: and in buildings, when the highest degree of the sublime is intended, the materials and ornaments ought neither to be white, nor green, nor yellow, nor blue, nor of a pale red, nor violet, nor spotted, but of sad and fuscous colours, as black, or brown, or deep purple, and the like.”

—Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1806; as quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

Thus are two ideas . . . reconciled

“Extreme light, by overcoming the organs of sight, obliterates all objects, so as in its effects exactly to resemble darkness. After looking for some time at the sun, two black spots, the impression which it leaves, seem to dance before our eyes. Thus are two ideas, as opposite as can be imagined, reconciled in the extremes of both; and both, in spite of their opposite nature, brought to concur in producing the sublime.”

—Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1806; as quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.

Darkness strikes

“Darkness strikes the sense no less than Light.”

—Alexander Pope, quoted by Marjorie Hope Nicolson in Newton Demands the Muse, 1946.