Seven Discourses on Art

The crimson disk of the Sun has plunged beneath the Ocean. The sea has decked itself with the burning colors of the orb reflected from the Heavens in a mirror of turquoise and emerald. The rolling waves are gold and silver and break noisily on a shore already darkened by the disappearance of the celestial luminary.We gaze regretfully after the star of day that poured its cheerful rays anon so generously over many who were intoxicated with gaiety and happiness. We dream contemplating the magnificent spectacle and in dreaming forget the moments that are rapidly flying by. Yet the darkness gradually increases and twilight gives way to night.The most indifferent spectator of the setting Sun as it descends beneath the waves at the far horizon could hardly be unmoved by the pageant of Nature at such an impressive moment.The light of the Crescent Moon like some fairy boat suspended in the sky is bright enough to cast changing and dancing sparkles of silver upon the ocean. The Evening Star declines slowly in its turn toward the western horizon. Our gaze is held by a shining world that dominates the whole of the occidental heavens. This is the Shepherd''s Star Venus of rays translucent.Little by little one by one the more brilliant stars shine out. Here are the white Vega of the Lyre the burning Arcturus the seven stars of the Great Bear a whole sidereal population catching fire like innumerable eyes that open on the Infinite. It is a new life that is revealed to our imagination inviting us to soar into these mysterious regions.O Night diapered with fires innumerable! hast thou not written in flaming letters on these Constellations the syllables of the great enigma of Eternity? The contemplation of thee is a wonder and a charm. How rapidly canst thou efface the regrets we suffered on the departure of our beloved Sun! What wealth what beauty hast thou not reserved for our enraptured souls! Where is the man that can remain blind to such a pageant and deaf to its language!To whatever quarter of the Heavens we look the splendors of the night are revealed to our astonished gaze. These celestial eyes seem in their turn to gaze at and to question us. Thus indeed have they questioned every thinking soul so long as Humanity has existed on our Earth. Homer saw and sung these self-same stars. They shone upon the slow succession of civilizations that have disappeared from Egypt of the period of the Pyramids Greece at the time of the Trojan War Rome and Carthage Constantine and Charlemagne down to the Twentieth Century. The generations are buried with the dust of their ancient temples. The Stars are still there symbols of Eternity.