Moreover, even if the beauties of home are humble, they are still infinite, and a man "may lie in his bed, like Pompey and his sons, in all quarters of the earth.”1

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It is, then, wise to cultivate a talent very fortunate for a man of my disposition, that of travelling in my easy chair; of transporting myself, without stirring from my parlour, to distant places and to absent friends; of drawing scenes in my mind's eye; and of peopling them with the groups of fancy, or the society of remembrance.'

"2

We may indeed secure for ourselves endless variety without leaving our own firesides.

In the first place, the succession of seasons multiplies every home. How different is the view from our windows as we look on the tender green of spring, the rich foliage of summer, the glorious tints of autumn, or the delicate tracery of winter.

1 Sir T. Browne.

2 Mackenzie, The Lounger.

Our climate is so happy, that even in

the worst months of the

year, "calm mornings of sunshine visit us at times, appearing like glimpses of departed spring amid the wilderness of wet and windy days that lead to winter. It is pleasant, when these interludes of silvery light occur, to ride into the woods and see how wonderful are all the colours of decay. Overhead, the elms and chestnuts hang their wealth of golden leaves, while the beeches darken into russet tones, and the wild cherry glows like blood-red wine. In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet hips are wreathed with hoary clematis or necklaces of coral briony-berries; the brambles burn with many-coloured flames; the dog-wood is bronzed to purple; and here and there the spindle-wood puts forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds, on delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the brown brake rises to our knees as we thread the forest paths."1

1 J. A. Symonds.

Nay, every day gives us a succession of glorious pictures in never-ending variety. It is remarkable how few people seem to derive any pleasure from the beauty of the sky. Gray, after describing a sunrise -how it began with a slight whitening, just tinged with gold and blue, lit up all at once by a little line of insufferable brightness which rapidly grew to half an orb, and so to a whole one too glorious to be distinctly seen-adds, "I wonder whether any one ever saw it before. I hardly believe it."1

No doubt from the dawn of poetry, the splendours of the morning and evening skies have delighted all those who have eyes to see. But we are especially indebted to Ruskin for enabling us more vividly to realise these glorious sky pictures. As he says, in language almost as brilliant as the sky itself, the whole heaven, "from the zenith to the horizon, becomes one molten, mantling 1 Gray's Letters.

sea of color and fire; every black bar turns into massy gold, every ripple and wave into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and purple, and scarlet, and colors for which there are no words in language, and no ideas in the mind-things which can only be conceived while they are visible; the intense hollow blue of the upper sky melting through it all, showing here deep and pure, and lightness; there, modulated by the filmy, formless body of the transparent vapour, till it is lost imperceptibly in its crimson and gold."

It is in some cases indeed "not color but conflagration," and though the tints are richer and more varied towards morning and at sunset, the glorious kaleidoscope goes on all day long. Yet "it is a strange thing how little in general people know about the sky. It is the part of creation in which Nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and

teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her. There are not many of her other works in which some more material or essential purpose than the mere pleasing of man is not answered by every part of their organisation; but every essential purpose of the sky might, so far as we know, be answered, if once in three days, or thereabouts, a great, ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up over the blue, and everything well watered, and so all left blue again till next time, with perhaps a film of morning and evening mist for dew. And instead of this, there is not a moment of any day of our lives when Nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended

for our perpetual pleasure."1

Ruskin.