62 SCENERY IN A PATCH 



Christian, do strive in vain to wean my heart from love of 

 thee; indoctrinating my spirit, that I may kiss the rod, 

 with which I am assured, too well, He soon will chasten me, 

 in changing the fair light, that glorious essence in which my 

 soul rejoiceth, for one black, everlasting, self-imparted mid- 

 night ? Yet so it shall be. A few more revolutions of 

 these puissant planets, a few more mutations of the sweet 

 returning seasons, and to me there shall be no change again 

 on earth for ever ! no choice between the fairest and the 

 foulest ! no difference of night or day ! no charm in the 

 rich gorgeousness of flowery summer, above the sere and 

 mournful autumn ! no cheery aspect in the piled hearth of 

 winter ! no sweet communion with the human eye compas- 

 sionate; no intercourse with the great intellect of old 

 dead, but surviving still in their sublime and solid pages !" 



Our moon is situated in external space, .at a mean dis- 

 tance of 237 thousand miles from the earth. Great as this 

 interval is, when compared with the terrestrial extent, it is 

 only about Toirth part the earth's distance from our sun, 

 and little more than one fourth the diameter of the solar 

 body. It is owing to this proximity to us, that she occu- 

 pies so large a space in the heavens, for the lunar diameter 

 is only 2160 miles. Our own globe is equal in magnitude 

 to /orty-mne such bodies, and the sun to near seventy mil- 

 lions. If loosened from the action of other forces, the earth 

 and the moon would fall together by the power of mutual 

 attraction ; but the earth being not only the larger body, 

 but most dense, and its attraction being far the most power- 

 ful, the moon would descend to it, passing the intervening 

 space in less than five days, our own planet courteously ad- 

 vancing about the distance of its semidiameter to meet the 

 Satellite. 



To the inhabitants of New- York or Boston, whose streets 

 are splendidly illuminated at night, the presence of the moon 

 is more a matter of ornament than of use. But it is other- 



