Quotes from A. Roger Ekirch

Nyx, born of Chaos in Greek mythology, was the goddess of "all-subduing" night who, in the Iliad, makes even Zeus tremble.

Let the night teach us what we are, and the day what we should be. THOMAS TRYON, 16911 T

Night knew no bounds. Goethe, on a moonlit evening in Naples, was "overwhelmed by a feeling of infinite space.

In 1737, a Connecticut husband—perchance while snoring—received from his wife a shovel of hot embers in his gaping mouth,

For people steeped in biblical wonders and supernatural lore, alterations in the night sky, including the aurora borealis in northern latitudes, carried even greater portent.

The day counts on labor; the night counts on thinking. Clamor is useful for the first; silence for the second.

Lacking a pot, Pepys "shit in the chimney" twice one night, whereas the Yorkshire laborer Abram Ingham used his "clogg" [shoe] to "make water in." If all else failed, an Italian adage instructed, "You may piss a bed, and say you sweated."38

When thy neighbours house is on fire, by its light thou mayest see thine own danger,

Indeed, it was the conviction of some divines that God created night as proof of hell's existence.

Within well-educated households, the critical transition from reading aloud to silent reading occurred during the fifteenth century. In time, other readers would master this liberating technique. Revolutionary in scope, silent reading let individuals scrutinize books with ease and speed. No less important, it allowed them to explore texts in isolation, apart from friends and family, or masters. Reading became vastly more personal, as more people pondered books and formed ideas on their own.

In all likelihood, the nightwatch, not prostitution, is the world's most ancient profession, originating as soon as men and women first feared the darkness.