AT THE SIGN OF THE BEAUTIFUL STAR. 



THE French have a charming phrase to describe 

 a bivouac in the open air. They call it 

 " coucher a la belle etoile " ; and the expres- 

 sion treats the starry firmament as the inn where the 

 traveller finds shelter for the night. It is a poetic and 

 suggestive reminder of that ampler roof which covers 

 us all, — the great mansion of the universe which 

 houses all our lesser worlds and homes. Sometimes 

 in a man's life it is worth his while to act upon the 

 hint of this happy phrase and put up for the night at 

 the sign of the beautiful star. Every year the passion 

 comes upon me afresh to go out and sleep under the 

 open sky, to feel "the sweet influences of the 

 Pleiades " ; to be lulled by the night-wind ; and to 

 renew in my soul that sense, which comes only to 

 him who from earth's high places sees the moon 

 swim past him like a sister ship in the fleets of 

 the firmament, that I myself am a mariner in space. 

 Thus it befel that on a glorious afternoon in August 

 I succeeded in beguiling four companions to accom- 

 pany me up the Dome of the Taconics, to sleep, — or 

 wake, — under "the beautiful star." 



It cannot be too often insisted that he who would 



159 



