Night used to be dark — really dark. When the sun went down, you pretty much couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face, unless there was a moon in the sky, a display of aurora, or lightning. Or you could get light from some kind of open flame. To accept this as fact is easy enough, but to imagine it as a reality is hard for people living in the 21st century.
Consider the problem of trying to imagine living by candlelight. Candles used to be made of tallow (essentially animal fat) and bee’s wax. Both cast a dim, yellow, flickering light. Sometimes a tallow candle would spatter hot fat on someone nearby.
The first major challenge to deep darkness at night was from gaslight in major cities, made possible by late-19th century coal and oil refining. To respond to the challenge presented by the great steadiness and brightness of gaslight, the candle industry developed the paraffin candle, which produced much brighter, whiter, and steadier light than wax or tallow candles ever did.
But paraffin is a byproduct of the same refining technology that produces gaslight. So the candle itself has been modernized to respond to the challenges of technology.
If you want to imagine life before Night was banished, it won’t work to simply light some candles and turn off all your lights (don’t forget the VCR display and the clock radio and the light from your neighbor’s porchlight leaking into your windows!). The candles you’re likely to be usings are already modern lighting techology.