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Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on

the stone floor, and the pure water in the village

well--thousands of acres of land--a whole province of France--all

France itself--lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint

hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its

greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as

mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the

manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in

the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act,

every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it.