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EVENING silvery sheen, herald of that great orb of splendour which, rising rapidly, clears the mountain and sheds a flood of wonderful, indescribable, mellow radiance over forest, plain, and sea, softening what is crude, pointing with brilliance the most striking features, and casting into a fathomless shadow the dark valleys of the western slopes. There is nothing cold about this Eastern moon. Seen, half-risen, against the dark foliage of the mountain, it glitters like molten silver, dazzling the eyes, and as it soars serenely upward seems the very perfection of beauty, light, and purity.

Strange that the delight and glory of mankind since ever the earth was peopled, the emblem of unattainable longing, should be only a gigantic cinder