252 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



clearly into the blue heavens, without any changes ex 

 cept from darkness to light, through all the degrees of 

 twilight, the charms of the morning would be greatly 

 diminished. But nature, that all hearts might be 

 enamoured of the morn, has wreathed her temples with 

 dappled crimson, and animated her countenance with 

 those milder glories, that so well become the fair 

 daughter of the dawn and the gentle mother of dews. 

 In ancient fable Aurora is a beautiful nymph, who 

 blushes when she first enters into the presence of Day ; 

 and the clouds are the fabric with which she veils her 

 features at his approach. But a young person of sen 

 sibility needs no such allegories, to inspire his mind 

 with a sense of the incomparable beauty and grandeur 

 of the orient, at the break of day. It is associated with 

 some of the happiest moments of his life ; and the ex 

 hilarated feelings, amounting almost to transport, with 

 which we look upon the dayspring in the east, are 

 probably one cause of the tonic and healthful influence 

 of early rising. 



Many theories have at different times been advanced 

 to explain the cause of the varying tints of the clouds ; 

 but it is at length conceded that they receive and reflect 

 the sun's rays as they are changed by passing through 

 the atmosphere, and that their tints are owing to no 

 peculiar refrangibility of the globules of vapor. As 

 the sun declines and sinks below the horizon, the whole 

 surrounding medium passes through the same series of 

 tints which are seen in the clouds. Were a snowy 

 mountain situated directly before our eyes, we should 

 see the graduated tints of yellow and orange at the 

 summit, deepening into crimson and purple in the 

 middle, and fading into dusky twilight at the base of 

 the mountain. Hence in winter, when the sky is per- 



