with music and guns the echoes in these alarming
galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and stalactite in the sculptured
and fretted chambers--icicle, orange-flower, acanthus, grapes, and
snowball. We shot Bengal lights into the vaults and groins of the sparry
cathedrals, and examined all the masterpieces which the four combined
engineers, water, limestone, gravitation, and time, could make in the
dark.

The mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs to
all natural objects, and shames the fine things to which we foppishly
compare them. I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with which
Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to mimic day,
and chemistry to ape vegetation. But I then took notice, and still chiefly
remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer was an illusion.
On arriving at what is called the "Star Chamber," our lamps were taken
from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside, and, on looking
upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick with stars
glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even what seemed a
comet flaming among them. All the party were touched with astonishment
and pleasure. Our musical friends sung with much feeling a pretty song,
"The stars are in the quiet sky," etc., and I sat down on the rocky floor
to enjoy the serene picture. Some crystal specks in the black ceiling high
overhead, reflecting the light of a half-hid lamp, yielded this
magnificent effect.

I own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities with
this theatrical trick. But I have had many experiences like it, before and
since; and we must be content to be pleased without too curiously
analyzing the occasions. Our conversation with Nature is not just what it
seems. The cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories, rainbows, and
northern lights, are not quite so spheral as our childhood thought them;
and the part our organization plays in them is too large. The senses
interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all they report of.
Once, we fancied the earth a plane, and stationary. In admiring the
sunset, we do not yet deduct the rounding, coordinating, pictorial powers
of the eye.

The same interference from our organization creates the most of our
pleasure and pain. Our first mistake is the belief that the circumstance
gives the joy which we give to the circumstance. Life is an ecstasy. Life
is sweet as n