AUGUST. 239 



immediately after sunset, has given it an import- 

 ance in the eyes of farmers ; but it is not the less 

 remarkable for its singular and splendid beauty. 

 No moon during the year can bear any comparison 

 with it. At its rising it has a character so pecu- 

 liarly its own, that the more a person is accustomed 

 to expect and to observe it, the more it strikes him 

 with astonishment. I would advise every one who 

 can go out in the country, to make a practice of 

 watching for its rising. The warmth and the dry- 

 ness of the earth, the clearness and balmy serenity of 

 the atmosphere at that season, the sounds of voices 

 borne from distant fields, the freshness which comes 

 with the evening, combine to make the twilight 

 walk delicious ; and scarcely has the sun departed 

 in the west, when the moon in the east rises from 

 beyond some solitary hill, or from behind the dark 

 rich foliage of trees, and sails up into the still and 

 transparent air in the full magnificence of a world. 

 It comes not as in common, a fair but flat disc on 

 the face of the sky, we behold it suspended in the 

 crystal air in its greatness and rotundity ; we per- 

 ceive the distance beyond it as sensibly as that 

 before it ; and its apparent size is magnificent. In 

 a short time, however, it has acquired a considera- 

 ble altitude its apparent bulk has diminished its 

 majestic grandeur has waned, and it sails on its 

 way calmly beautiful, but in nothing differing from 

 its usual character. 



During this month nature seems to experience a 

 second spring. Several trees, particularly the oak 



