How glorious it would be to contemplate a realm on which the eye of man has never yet rested! Great, therefore, as you may readily conceive, was the depression of our travellers' spirits, as they pursued their way, enveloped in a veil of darkness the most profound.

Still even then Ardan, as usual, formed somewhat of an exception.

Finding it impossible to see a particle of the Lunar surface, he gave it up for good, and tried to console himself by gazing at the stars, which now fairly blazed in the spangled heavens.
And certainly never before had astronomer enjoyed an opportunity for gazing at the heavenly bodies under such peculiar advantages.

How Fraye of Paris, Chacornac of Lyons, and Father Secchi of Rome would have envied him! For, candidly and truly speaking, never before had mortal eye revelled on such a scene of starry splendor.

The black sky sparkled with lustrous fires, like the ceiling of a vast hall of ebony encrusted with flashing diamonds.