KNOWLEDGE. 267 



tion in which she is never visible, not 

 even to the telescopic view of the as- 

 tronomer, and therefore the fact is scarcely 

 credible to the uninitiated in that most 

 sublime and interesting of all sciences. 

 In a letter written to a friend on the 

 day I have thus described it: 



" The single star, too, twinkling so soon 

 after noon, and the awful gloom cast over 

 the atmosphere by so great an obscuration 

 of the source of light, produced a scene 

 so pleasingly singular, so rarely beautiful, so 

 divinely sublime, that the remembrance of 

 it, I trust, will never be erased from my 

 mind, or the impression it left removed 

 from my heart. And here I must regret 

 the want of that knowledge, which in my 

 youth I could so readily and would so 

 eagerly have pursued, and with proper care, 

 perhaps, have attained. I envied those 

 who, with more ample fortune, and with 

 abler friends, had had the means, the 



