26 LEAVES FROM THE BOOK OF NATURE. 



of day and the sweet, sleep-bringing coziness of night. 

 Few only could be able to afford the costly luxury of 

 the so-called window-pane muscle of Chinese waters, and 

 yet fewer still ever think of what a true blessing the 

 little pebble is to us in his new form of glass ! How 

 vastly superior is thanks to him the poorest laborer's 

 hut now to the gorgeous palaces of ancient Eome. 

 Neither the splendid mansions of her senators nor the 

 glorious temples of Athens and Memphis knew the cheap 

 comfort, the simple beauty of glass. Now, poor, indeed, 

 and wretched must be the man who cannot invite the 

 cheerful light of day into his humble dwelling, and yet 

 keep storm and rain, wind and weather at bay. And as 

 light comes, a welcome guest, to his hearth, so his eye 

 can, unimpeded by wickerwork or wooden shutter, as of 

 old, now pass freely beyond the narrow domain of his 

 little home. It can reach far and free into God's beau- 

 teous creation, and even the poor, sick sufferer on his 

 couch may gladden his eye with the sight of green trees, 

 and his mind by looking upward into the blue heaven 

 where his great father dwells, that will never forsake him. 

 It is Strange, indeed, that the great value of glass 

 remained so long unacknowledged. It is true that Phoe- 

 nician and Carthaginian merchant-princes gloried in their 

 large, brilliant glass vases as the costliest jewels they 

 possessed. Nero and Hadrian even yet counted them as 

 by far the most precious treasures of their palaces, and 

 paid nearly half a million for one. To keep their rich 

 wines in glass and to drink the generous fluid out of 

 glass was given only to a few, the richest of the land. 



