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| THE GRAND BASIN BY MOONLIGHT - Thousands, who were so fortunate as to frequently visit the Exposition, are familiar with its varied phases at all hours of the day and evening. Early-risers walked with springing step along the lake to catch the freshening breeze, or on the Wooded Isle while yet the beaded dew remained untouched on grass and shrub and flower. Those coming late saw it lying white under the noonday glare, when the all-too-scanty strips of shade north of the big buildings offered grateful resting places; others remember it when the sun was setting and the glassy lake lay like a sheet of sapphire darkened at its edge by lengthened shadows; evening visitors gazed upon it aglow with myriad lights, behind whose brilliant lines and festoons the white structures loomed darkly in unreal beauty. But to very few was accorded the privilege of contemplating the scene after those lights had long been out, and when beneath the setting moon or the pale and fitful stars, nature and art standing alone together and gazing upon those solemn structures in their sylvan setting, pressed each others palms in congratulation upon their consummate handiwork. At such a time as this - in the "wee sma' hours" - when stars were singing and the harvest moon just dropping behind a cloud-bank in the western sky, with the breeze which heralds dawn stirring the dark waters of the Grand Basin, this superb view, of which any artist should feel justly proud and highly prizes, was happily secured. |
