Close to this lies _Mare Humorum_,
the Sea of Humors, where we sail about, the sport of each fitful breeze,
"everything by starts and nothing long." Around all, embracing all, lies
_Oceanus Procellarum_, the Ocean of Tempests, where, engaged in one
continuous struggle with the gusty whirlwinds, excited by our own
passions or those of others, so few of us escape shipwreck. And, when
disgusted by the difficulties of life, its deceptions, its treacheries
and all the other miseries "that flesh is heir to," where do we too
often fly to avoid them? To the _Sinus Iridium_ or the _Sinus Roris_,
that is Rainbow Gulf and Dewy Gulf whose glittering lights, alas! give
forth no real illumination to guide our stumbling feet, whose sun-tipped
pinnacles have less substance than a dream, whose enchanting waters all
evaporate before we can lift a cup-full to our parched lips! Showers,
storms, fogs, rainbows--is not the whole mortal life of man comprised in
these four words?
Now turn to the hemisphere on the right, the women's side, and you also
discover "seas," more numerous indeed, but of smaller dimensions and
with gentler names, as more befitting the feminine temperament.
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