316 CLOUDS. 



series of thoughts will pass away from our memory; then 

 slowly forming themselves again and recombining in a 

 still more beautiful and dazzling congeries in another 

 part of the sky ; now gloomy, changeable, and formless, 

 then assuming a definite shape and glowing with the most 

 lovely beams of light and beauty ; lastly fading into dark- 

 ness when the sun departs, as the mind for a short period 

 is obliterated in sleep. 



It is remarkable that in the evening, after the hues of 

 sunset have faded to a certain point, the clouds are some- 

 times reilluminated before darkness comes on. Before 

 the sun declines, the clouds are grayish tipped with silver. 

 As he recedes, the gray portion becomes brown or auburn, 

 aud the silvery edges of a yellow or golden hue. While 

 the auburn is resolved into purple, the yellows deepen 

 into vermilion and orange. Every tint is constantly 

 changing into a deeper one, until the sky is decorated 

 with every imaginable tint except green and blue. When 

 these colors have attained their greatest splendor, they 

 gradually fade until the mass of each cloud has turned to 

 a dull iron-gray, and every beautiful tint has vanished. 

 We might then suppose that all this scene of glory had 

 faded. After a few minutes, however, the clouds begin 

 once more to brighten ; the whole scene is gradually re- 

 illuminated, and passes through another equally regular 

 gradation of more sombre tints, consisting of olive, lilac, 

 and bronze, and their intermediate shades. The second 

 illumination is neither so bright nor so beautiful as the 

 first. But I have known the light that was shed upon 

 the earth to be sensibly increased for a few moments by 

 this second gradation of hues, without any diminution of 

 the mass of cloud. 



Men of the world may praise the effects of certain 

 medical excitants that serve, by benumbing the outward 

 senses, to exalt the soul into reveries of bliss and untried 



