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When, among the innumerable "patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their memory with immortal fame.

Indeed, with the exception of the four in the Southern Cross, two in the Centaur, and two or three others, there is no star of the first magnitude to be seen, and the constellations are poor compared with those of our splendid northern skies. Shakespeare's ". . . inlaid with patines of bright gold," must seem hyperbole to the Australian.

"'Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st, But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims: Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in we cannot hear it."

Later, when the Titanic had gone down and we lay still on the sea waiting for the day to dawn or a ship to come, I remember looking up at the perfect sky and realizing why Shakespeare wrote the beautiful words he puts in the mouth of Lorenzo: "Jessica, look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.

In the center of the yard the riches of the bishop lie in a high heap gold and silver vases, holy chalices, together with drinking goblets, Bible cases of precious wood, together with platters of the banquet table, patines, together with bowls used for cooling the bishop's wine; good sized and ripped-up bags, from which silver and gold sous roll out; costly cloth, purple and blue, that but awaited the tailor's scissors; warm and rare furs, some black as crows, others white as doves.

It is this doctrine which Shakspeare alludes to when he makes Lorenzo teach astronomy to Jessica in this fashion: "Look, Jessica, see how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold! There's not the smallest orb that thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim; Such harmony is in immortal souls!

Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold; There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims; "Isn't that beautiful?" "Y-e-s," said Nancy, "I suppose it is. The words sound nice when you read them, but I'm sure I haven't a ghost of an idea what it means.

At first the tree, of what name or nature I cannot tell, stood full and perfect, a mass of foliage all yellow as if made up of "patines of bright gold." Then day by day, almost hour by hour, it darkened and the tree shrank as if huddling its leaves closer about it in the cold that fell from the ever-snowier Sierra. On the last morning we left its boughs shaking in the rain against the cold,