What we call diffused light on Earth, the grateful result of refraction, the luminous matter held in suspension by the air, the mother of our dawns and our dusks, of our blushing mornings and our dewy eyes, of our shades, our penumbras, our tints and all the other magical effects of _chiaro-oscuro_--this diffused light has absolutely no existence on the surface of the Moon.

Nothing is there to break the inexorable contrast between intense white and intense black.

At mid-day, let a Selenite shade his eyes and look at the sky: it will appear to him as black as pitch, while the stars still sparkle before him as vividly as they do to us on the coldest and darkest night in winter.
From this you can judge of the impression made on our travellers by those strange lunar landscapes.

Even their decided novelty and very strange character produced any thing but a pleasing effect on the organs of sight.

With all their enthusiasm, the travellers felt their eyes "get out of gear," as Ardan said, like those of a man blind from his birth and suddenly restored to sight.