What is the meaning of the metaphor “a dew before the sun”?

Thomas R. Valletta

“A very powerful expression. There’s nothing left. Everything is swept away as the dew before the sun, combing the land. It wasn’t just a spot engagement here and there that would lead to a conference between the rulers, or something like that. No, it was a total thing. The most violent element of war, like a violent natural force, like a plague sweeping a nation, appears when, ‘freed from all conventional restrictions, it [breaks] loose with all its natural force. It is a natural phenomenon. There are no more artificial or other restraints. War is much nearer to real nature in absolutes’” (Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, 3:136).

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