And the I'm going to be. Welcome to Smuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

On Snusscast, we read excerpts from Public Domain Works and occasionally original stories.

We'd like to thank our listeners.

If you enjoy our show, please review us on Apple Podcasts,

and also share it with a friend.

The best place to listen to us is on our website, snuscast.com.

That way you can play a single episode and fall asleep without another one automatically playing.

This episode is brought to you by a fresh pair of sunglasses on a sunny day.

Tonight we'll be reading from nature

an essay published in 1836

by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In the essay Emerson put forth the foundation of transcendentalism, a belief system that espouses

a non-traditional appreciation of nature.

Transcendentalism suggests that the divine or God suffuses nature and suggests that reality can be understood by studying nature. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. Nature, Chapter 1. To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.

I am not solitary, whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let

him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds will separate between him and what he touches.

One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design to give man in the heavenly bodies the perpetual

presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are, if the stars should appear one night

in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown?

But every night come out those envoys of beauty and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

The stars awaken a certain reverence because though always present they are

...