CELESTIAL SCENERY. 



The system of Nature is attended with so many cir- 

 cumstances that mar our happiness, that Nature has 

 benevolently spread every scene with beauty that shall 

 serve by its exhilarating influence to lift us above the 

 physical evils that surround us and render us half un- 

 mindful of their presence. Hence beauty is made to 

 spring up, not only in the field, in the wilderness, and by 

 the wayside, by the sea-shore and among the hills, but 

 it is spread in gorgeous spectacles upon the heavens in 

 the infinitely varied forms and arrangements of the clouds, 

 and in their equally beautiful lights, shades, and colors. 

 The man of feeling and culture, therefore, who takes 

 pleasure in surveying the beauties of a terrestrial land- 

 scape feels no less delight in contemplating the scenery 

 of the heavens. Every morning, noon, and evening affords 

 him scenes always charming and never tiresome, being 

 as changeable and evanescent as they are brilliant and 

 beautiful. 



I have ever been at a loss to explain why we are more 

 agreeably affected with the appearance of sunshine on a 

 circumscribed part of the landscape, while we ourselves 

 are enveloped in shadow, than when the whole space 

 is illuminated. In this case the circumstances that 

 cause us to look with pleasure upon the raging of a tem- 

 pest, while we are in a comfortable shelter, seem to be 

 reversed. The two facts, however, do not involve any 

 inconsistency. In the first case, we are amused in a com- 

 fortable lookout, with the movements of a tempest, — the 



