Agnes M. Clerke

“ And each of these cosmical grains of dust has a theory far more complex than that of Jupiter; it bears within it the secret of its origin, and fulfils a function in the universe. The sun itself is no longer a semi-fabulous, fire-girt globe, but the vast scene of the play of forces as yet imperfectly known to us, offering a boundless field for the most arduous and inspiring researches. Among the planets the widest variety in physical habitudes is seen to prevail, and each is recognised as a world apart, inviting inquiries which, to be effective, must necessarily be special and detailed. ”

“ There, along boundless asphodel plains, Odysseus watched Orion, a spectral huntsman pursuing spectral game: there Agamemnon denounced the treachery of Clytemnestra: there Ajax still nursed his wrath at the award of the Argive kings: there Achilles gnawed a shadowy heart in longing, on any terms, for action and the upper air: thither Hermes conducted the delinquent souls of the suitors of Penelope. A tranquil dwelling-place: where the stagnant air of apathy was stirred only by sighs of inane regret.
Homer’s asphodel grows only in the under-world, yet it is no mythical plant. ”

“ An economist of minutes, such as its maker, could, then, do no otherwise than let the giant telescope lie by unless its powers were expressly needed. They were surprisingly effective. “With the forty-foot instrument,” he reported to the Royal Society in 1800, “the appearance of Sirius announced itself at a great distance like the dawn of the morning, till this brilliant star at last entered the field, with all the splendour of the rising sun, and forced me to take my eye from that beautiful sight.” ”

“ Of this unequal and unhappy marriage, the far-famed Achilles was the ill-starred offspring.
So intense is the Homeric realisation of the hero’s superhuman powers, that they scarcely excite surprise. And his belongings are on the scale of his qualities. None but himself could wield his spear; his armour was forged in Olympus; his shield was a panorama of human life; his horses would obey only his guidance, or that of his delegates. Not for common handling, indeed, were the ‘wind-swift’ coursers born of Zephyr and the Harpy on the verge of the dim Ocean-stream. ”

“ Herschel wrote in 1794, “appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the first, or, in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system; all others being truly secondary to it. Its similarity to the other globes of the solar system with regard to its solidity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface; the rotation upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, lead us on to suppose that it is also most probably inhabited, like the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe.” ”

“ A cool, dark, solid globe, its surface diversified with mountains and valleys, clothed in luxuriant vegetation, and "richly stored with inhabitants," protected by a heavy cloud-canopy from the intolerable glare of the upper luminous region, where the dazzling coruscations of a solar aurora some thousands of miles in depth evolved the stores of light and heat which vivify our world—such was the central luminary which Herschel constructed with his wonted ingenuity, and described with his wonted eloquence. ”

“ For his keen curiosity falls in with the design of his celestial patroness, in urging him to drink to the dregs the costly draught of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet it is to be noted that from the house of the enchantress there is no exit save through the gates of hell.
Within the spacious confines of the universe there is perhaps but one race of beings whose implanted instincts and whose visible destiny are irreconcilably at war. Man is born to suffer; but suffering has always for him the poignancy of surprise. ”

“ One additional ray of light thrown on the marvels of creation—a single, minutest encroachment upon the strongholds of ignorance—is recompense enough for a lifetime of toil. Or rather, the toil is its own reward, if pursued in the lofty spirit which alone becomes it. ”

“ The telescope brings to a focus twenty-five times as much light as can enter the pupil, taken at one-fifth of an inch in diameter; therefore it will render visible a star twenty-five times fainter than the smallest seen without its help; or—what comes to the same thing—an intrinsically equal star at a five-fold distance. A one-inch glass hence actually quintuples the diameter of the visible universe, and gives access to seventy-five times the volume of space ranged through by the unassisted eye.
This simple law Herschel made the foundation-stone of his sidereal edifice. ”

“ The hero, returning after a generation of absence, in a disguise impenetrable to son, servants, nay to the wife of his bosom, is recognised by one solitary living creature, a dog. And to this faithful animal, unforgetting in his forlorn decrepitude, whose affectionate gestures form his only welcome to the home now occupied by unscrupulous foes, ready to take his life at the first hint of his identity, he is obliged to refuse a stroke of his hand, or so much as a glance of his eye, to soothe the fatal spasm of his joy. ”

“ No one of distinction in science came to Hanover without calling upon her. Humboldt, Gauss, Mädler, Encke, Schumacher, paid her their respects, personally or by letter, if not in both ways. “Next to listening to the conversation of learned men,” she told the younger Lady Herschel, “I like to hear about them; but I find myself, unfortunately, among beings who like nothing but smoking, big talk on politics, wars, and such-like things.” ”

“ It is, accordingly, quite possible to photograph objects so faint as to be altogether beyond the power of any telescope to reveal—witness the chemical disclosure of the invisible nebula encircling Nova Persei—and we may thus eventually learn whether a blank space in the sky truly represents the end of the stellar universe in that direction, or whether farther and farther worlds roll and shine beyond, veiled in the obscurity of immeasurable distance. ”

“ He accordingly made his Hades to bloom for all time with the tall white flowers of the king’s spear, and so perpetuated a connexion he was not concerned to explain.
Homer cannot be said to have attained to any real conception of the immortality of the soul. The shade which flitted to subterranean spaces when the breath left the body, resembled an animal principle of life rather than a true spiritual essence. Disinherited, exiled from its proper abode, without function, sense, or memory, it survived, a vaporous image, a mere castaway residuum of what once had been a man. ”

“ The stars came out well, and no sooner had he got hold of Saturn than a sixth satellite stood revealed to view! Its “younger brother” was detected September 17th; and the two could be seen, on favourable opportunities, threading their way, like beads of light, along the lucid line of the almost vanished ring. Herschel named them Enceladus and Mimas, and found, on looking up his former observations of Saturn, that Enceladus, the exterior and brighter object, had been unmistakably seen with the twenty-foot, August 19th, 1787. Mimas is a very delicate test of instrumental perfection. ”

“ Thus practical and theoretical astronomy advanced on parallel lines in England and France respectively, the improvement of their several tools—the telescope and the quadrant on the one side, and the calculus on the other—keeping pace. The whole future of the science seemed to be theirs. The cessation of interest through a too speedy attainment of the perfection towards which each spurred the other, appeared to be the only danger it held in store for them. When all at once, a rival stood by their side—not, indeed, menacing their progress, but threatening to absorb their popularity. ”

“ Elsewhere, from beginning to end, we meet the same spontaneous fervour of expression, the same magnificent energy kept in hand like a spirited steed; an unfailing sense of the splendour of heroic achievement, and a glowing joy in human existence, tempered by the heart-thrilling remembrance of its pathetic mystery of sorrow. This prevalent uniformity in manner and spirit is certainly unfavourable to the hypothesis of divided authorship. ”

“ The conclusions reached by Kirchhoff were no sooner announced than they took their place, with scarcely a dissenting voice, among the established truths of science. The broad result, that the dark lines in the spectrum of the sun afford an index to its chemical composition no less reliable than any of the tests used in the laboratory, was equally captivating to the imagination of the vulgar, and authentic in the judgment of the learned; and, like all genuine advances in the knowledge of Nature, it stimulated curiosity far more than it gratified it. ”

“ Music is the most exclusive of arts. In turning aside, after half a lifetime spent in its cultivation, to seek his ideal elsewhere, Herschel took an unparalleled course. And his choice was final. Music was long his pursuit, astronomy his pastime; a fortunate event enabled him to make astronomy his pursuit, while keeping music for a pastime. ”

“ Nevertheless, the view that the sun's rotation is intimately connected with the formation of spots is so obviously correct, that we can only wonder it was not thought of sooner, while we are even now unable to explain with any certainty how it is so connected.
Mere scrutiny of the solar surface, however, is not the only means of solar observation. We have a satellite, and that satellite from time to time acts most opportunely as a screen, cutting off a part or the whole of those dazzling rays in which the master-orb of our system veils himself from over-curious regards. ”

“ The ‘chafed boar’ in the Iliad either carries everything before him, as Ajax scattered the Trojans fighting round the body of Patroclus; or he dies, tracked to his lair, if die he must, fearlessly facing his foes, incarnating rage with bristles erected, blazing eyes, and gnashing tusks. ”

“ The discovery of binary stars was, in Arago’s phrase, “one with a future.” In itself an amazing revelation, it marked the beginning of a series of investigations of immense variety and importance. By it, a science of sidereal mechanics was shown to be possible; the sway of gravitation received an unlimited extension; and the perception of order, which is the precursor of knowledge, ranged at once over the whole visible creation. Herschel, it is true, had not the means of formally proving that stellar orbits are described in obedience to the Newtonian law. ”

“ It means that astronomy has left the place where she dwelt apart in rapt union with mathematics, indifferent to all things on earth save only to those mechanical improvements which should aid her to penetrate further into the heavens, and has descended into the forum of human knowledge, at once a suppliant and a patron, alternately invoking help from and promising it to each of the sciences, and patiently waiting upon the advances of all. The science of the heavenly bodies has, in a word, become a branch of terrestrial physics, or rather a higher kind of integration of all their results. ”

“ They take root before consciousness is awake, or memory active; they live through the decades of a man’s life; are transported with him from shore to shore; survive the enthusiasm of friendship and the illusions of ambition; they can no more be eradicated from the tenor of his thoughts than the type of his features can be changed from Tartar to Caucasian, or the colour of his eyes from black to blue. ”