unbroken spaces of wall; the simplicity of the
form emphasizes the substance. And again, the effect of extensity
is never long satisfactory unless it is superinduced upon some
material beauty; the dignity of great hangings would suffer if they
were not of damask, but of cotton, and the vast smoothness of the
sky would grow oppressive if it were not of so tender a blue.

_Example of the stars._

Sec. 25. Another beauty of the sky -- the stars -- offers so striking and
fascinating an illustration of the effect of multiplicity in uniformity,
that I am tempted to analyze it at some length. To most people, I
fancy, the stars are beautiful; but if you asked why, they would be
at a loss to reply, until they remembered what they had heard about
astronomy, and the great size and distance and possible habitation
of those orbs. The vague and illusive ideas thus aroused fall in so
well with the dumb emotion we were already feeling, that we
attribute this emotion to those ideas, and persuade ourselves that
the power of the starry heavens lies in the suggestion of
astronomical facts.

The idea of the insignificance of our earth and of the
incomprehensible multiplicity of worlds is indeed immensely
impressive; it may even be intensely disagreeable. There is
something baffling about infinity; in its presence the sense of finite
humility can never wholly banish the rebellious suspicion that we
are being deluded. Our mathematical imagination is put on the rack
by an attempted conception that has all the anguish of a nightmare
and probably, could we but awake, all its laughable absurdity. But
the obsession of this dream is an intellectual puzzle, not an
aesthetic delight. It is not essential to our admiration. Before the
days of Kepler the heavens declared the glory of God; and we
needed no calculation of stellar distances, no fancies about a
plurality of worlds, no image of infinite spaces, to make the stars
sublime.

Had we been taught to believe that the stars governed our fortunes,
and were we reminded of fate whenever we looked at them, we
should similarly tend to imagine that this belief was the source of
their sublimity; and, if the superstition were dispelled, we should
think the interest gone from the apparition. But experience would
soon undeceive us, and prove to us that the sensuous character of
the object was sublime in itself. Indeed, on account of that intrinsic
sublimity the sky can be fitly chosen as a symbol for a