Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=PfdLAAAAcAAJ
(the Bavarian State Library)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
A. AND W. GALIGNANI AND Co., | BAUDRY'S EUROPEAN LIBRARY, |
RUE VIVIENNE, No. 18. | QUAI MALAQUAIS, No. 3. |
Of all the hard-working people on the earth, there are none soserviceable to her neighbours as the moon. She lights lovers andthieves. She keeps watch-dogs waking. She is a constant resource topoets and romance-writers. She helps the compounders of almanacksamazingly. She has something to do with the weather, and the tides,and the harvest; and in short she has a finger in every man's pie, andprobably more or less effect upon every man's brain. She is a charmingcreature in all her variations. Her versatility is not the offspringof caprice; and she is constant in the midst of every change.
I will have a moon, say what you will, my dear Prebend; and she shallmore or less rule every page of this book.
There was a sloping piece of ground looking to the south east, with avery small narrow rivulet running at the bottom. On the opposite sideof the stream was another slope, as like the former as possible, onlylooking in the opposite direction. Titian, and Vandyke, and some otherpainters, have pleased themselves with depicting, in one picture, thesame face in two or three positions; and these two slopes lookedexactly like the two profiles of one countenance. Each had its littleclumps of trees scattered about. Each had here and there a hedgerow,somewhat broken and dilapidated; and each too had towards its northernextremity a low chalky bank, through which the stream seemed to haveforced itself, in those good old times when rivers first began to goon pilgrimages towards the sea, and, like many other pilgrims that wewot of made their way through all obstacles in a very unceremoniousmanner.
Over these two slopes about the hour of half past eleven, postmeridian, the moon was shining with a bright but fitful sort ofsplendour; for ever and anon a light fleecy cloud, like a piece ofswansdown borne by the wind, would dim the brightness of her rays, andcast a passing shadow on the scene below. Half an hour before, indeed,the radiant face of night's sweet queen had been veiled by a blackercurtain, which had gathered thick over the sky at the sun's decline;but, as the moon rose high, those dark vapours became mottled withwavy lines of white, and gradually her beams seemed to drink them up.
It may be asked if those two sloping meadows, with their clumps oftrees, and broken hedgerows, and the little stream flowing on betweenthem, was all that the moonlight showed? That wou