THE MOON. 



283 



Olive trees and cast mysterious shadows upon the paths. 

 On evenings like these we are reluctant to retire to our 

 rooms, and stroll up and down out of doors until a late 

 hour. "No planet — so wrote Pliny — can charm one 

 as does the moon. She is the earth's nearest relation. 



Nature created her to banish the shades of night 



How manifold are her forms ! 'At one time she is curved 

 into a crescent: at another cut in twain; then again 

 rounded into a full orb. How often does she darken 

 and disappear, onlv to reappear in full splendour. Sometimes 

 she watches laithfuUy over tlie earth chiring the whole 

 night, or at others appears onh' at a late hour. Oc- 

 casionally she is visible even in the da^'time, as companion 

 to the sun. Now she is low down on the horizon, now 

 high up in the heavens. Sometimes she seems to touch 

 the summits of the high -, mountains and follows 



now a northerh' and (^ ^^^^f/_ then a more south- 

 erly course. It was '"^cif^ Endymion who first 

 grasped the meaning of these T changes. Hence, in 

 later times, legend represented / him as the lover 



/ 



of Selene. She 

 was said to 



Oni alio podi aides. 



