It is a region of atmospheric calm. If we were not moving,
you would hardly feel a breeze, and I doubt if there is ever a high wind
here. To build their habitations in the air and make them float like
gossamers--could any idea be more beautiful than that, or more in harmony
with the nature of this planet, which is the favorite of the sun, for
first he inundates it with a splendor unknown to the earth, and then
generously covers it with a gorgeous screen of cloud which cuts off his
scorching beams but suffers the light to pass, filtered to opalescent
ether?"
When Edmund spoke like that, as he sometimes did, suffusing his words
with the fervor of his imagination, even Henry, I believe, felt his soul
lifted to unaccustomed heights. We hung upon his lips, and, without a
word, waited for him to continue. Presently he murmured, in an undertone:
"Yes, all this I foresaw in my dream. A world of crystal, houses that
seemed not made with hands, reaching toward heaven, and a people,
beautiful beyond compare, dwelling in the aerial home of birds"; and
then, addressing us, in his ordinary tones: "You will see that the
capital, which we are unquestionably approaching, is to a large extent
composed of this airy architecture.
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