pray when is this famous affair to come off?"

"Tomorrow if the weather prove favorable, if not, on the first fair
night."

Then indeed I set my house in order. Here was something definite and
trustworthy. First an eclipse, then a book, and yet I pitied the moon
as I walked home that night. She came up the heavens so round and
radiant, so glorious in her majesty, so confident in her strength, so
sure of triumphal march across the shining sky; not knowing that a
great black shadow loomed right athwart her path to swallow her up.
She never dreamed that all her royal beauty should pass behind a pall,
that all her glory should be demeaned by pitiless eclipse, and her dome
of delight become the valley of humiliation! Is there no help? I said.
Can no hand lead her gently another way? Can no voice warn her of the
black shadow that lies in ambuscade? None. Just as the young girl
leaves her tender home, and goes fearless to her future,--to the future
which brings sadness for her smiling, and patience for her hope, and
pain for her bloom, and the cold requital of kindness, or the
unrequital of coldness for her warmth of love, so goes the moon,
unconscious and serene, to meet her fate. But at least I will watch
with her. Trundle up to the window here, old lounge! you are almost as
good as a grandmother. Steady there! broken-legged table. You have
gone limping ever since I knew you; don't fail me tonight. Shine
softly, Kerosena, next of kin to the sun, true monarch of mundane
lights! calmly superior to the flickering of all the fluids, and the
ghastliness of all the gases, though it must be confessed you don't
hold out half as long as you used when first your yellow banner was
unfurled. Shine softly tonight, and light my happy feet through the
Walden woods, along the Walden shores, where a philosopher sits in
solitary state. He shall keep me awake by the Walden shore till the
moon and the shadow meet. How tranquil sits the philosopher, how
grandly rings the man! Here, in his homespun house, the squirrels
click under his feet, the woodchucks devour his beans, and the loon
laughs on the lake. Here rich men come, and cannot hide their lankness
and their poverty. Here poor men come, and their gold shines through
their rags. Hither comes the poet, and the house is too narrow for
their thoughts, and the rough walls ring with lusty laughter. O happy
Walden wood and woodland lake, did you thrill through all your luminou