In rainbows, light is both refracted and reflected. You can only see a rainbow when the sun is low, your own position being between the rainbow and the sun. The rays of light refracted by the shower into their prismatic colors, are then reflected by the shower back into your eye, and so, from the principles we started with, it will be clear that while a thousand people may see under the same circumstances a rainbow of the same intensity, no two people see precisely the same object, but each man enjoys a rainbow to himself.
Of halos, and of lunar rainbows, of double suns, of the mirage, or any other extraordinary things developed by the play of light and air together, we did not intend to speak. Our discussion was confined to such an explanation of some every-day sights as may lend aid to contemplation sometimes of an autumnal evening, when
----"the soft hour Of walking comes: for him who lonely loves To seek the distant hills, and there converse With Nature."
Do you not think the man impenetrably deaf who, professing to converse with Nature, can not hear the tale which Nature is forever telling?
In the year 1641, there lived in a narrow, obscure street of Cologne a poor woman named Marie Marianni. With an old female servant for her sole companion, she inhabited a small, tumble-down, two-storied house, which had but two windows in front. Nothing could well be more miserable than the furniture of this dark dwelling. Two worm-eaten four-post bedsteads, a large deal-press, two rickety tables, three or four old wooden chairs, and a few rusty kitchen utensils, formed the whole of its domestic inventory.
Marie Marianni, despite of the wrinkles which nearly seventy years had left on her face, still preserved the trace of former beauty. There was a grace in her appearance, and a dignity in her manner, which prepossessed strangers in her favor whenever they happened to meet her; but this was rarely. Living in the strictest retirement, and avoiding as much as possible all intercourse with her neighbors, she seldom went out except for the purpose of buying provisions. Her income consisted of a small pension, which she received every six months. In the street where she lived she was known by the name of "The Old Nun," and was regarded with considerable respect.