Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876Giles, Ernest
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Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876
Giles, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
point that up into the stars alone their hoped-for heaven is to be
found; and if all do not, in this agree, still there are some aspiring
minds high soaring above sublunary things, above the petty disputes of
differing creeds, and the vague promises they hold out to their
votaries, who behold, in the firmament above, mighty and mysterious
objects for veneration and love.
These are the gorgeous constellations set thick with starry gems, the
revolving orbs of densely crowded spheres, the systems beyond systems,
clusters beyond clusters, and universes beyond universes, all
brilliantly glittering with various coloured light, all wheeling and
swaying, floating and circling round some distant, unknown, motive,
centre-point, in the pauseless measures of a perpetual dance of joy,
keeping time and tune with most ecstatic harmony, and producing upon
the enthralled mind the not imaginary music of the spheres.
Then comes the burning wish to know how come these mighty mysterious
and material things about. We are led to suppose as our own minds and
bodies progressively improve from a state of infancy to a
certain-point, so it is with all things we see in nature; but the
method of the original production of life and matter is beyond the
powers of man to discover. Therefore, we look forward with anxiety and
suspense, hope, love, and fear to a future time, having passed through
the portals of the valley of death, from this existence, we shall
enjoy life after life, in new body, after new body, passing through
new sphere, after new sphere, arriving nearer and nearer to the
fountain-head of all perfection, the divinely great Almighty source of
light and life, of hope and love.
These were some of my reflections throughout that weary night; the
stars that in their constellations had occupied the zenith, now have
passed the horizon's verge; other and fresh glittering bands now
occupy their former places--at last the dawn begins to glimmer in the
east, and just as I could have fallen into the trance of sleep, it was
time for the race for life, again to wander on, so soon as our animals
could be found.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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