Just prior to this line, Ralph Waldo Emerson states that, in order to be truly alone (and to reap the benefits of solitude), a man has to go into nature; he should go and look up at the stars. If he is in his room, reading or writing, then he is not truly experiencing solitude. In the line you cite, Emerson seems to consider the possibility, based on appearances, that nature was actually designed for just this purpose: in order to allow us to view the celestial bodies and their movements and thereby render us capable of seeing that we are always in the presence of awe-inspiring beauty. He says that if the stars only came out once every thousand years, we would adore them, but they come out every single night, and so this makes it look like we are all meant to see them, when really there is much to be gained in looking at them.
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