Luna

“ Deep down within the heart of Luna was – the Hemisphere! It was one mile in diameter and a half-mile in height. From the bottom of its huge disc-like floor to the top of the broad domed roof it was a solid expanse of permeable shifting grayness, inhabited by strange two-dimensional shadows and angles which were continually moving. An observer from the world above would have found something chilling, something totally extraneous, in the mere vista, suffused by a dull foggy illumination, of which the source was not visible. ”

“ The unruffled foliage of shrub and tree is overcast with a silvern tinge, the reflection of Luna's mellow light on Nature's inimitable green, while, like groups of twinkling stars from afar, are seen in the distance the sacred fires which light up every temple's summit, and which are never permitted to go out. ”

“ The moon, an hour high just after eight, is past her half, and looks somehow more like a human face up there than ever before. As it grows later, we have such gorgeous and broad cloud-effects, with Luna's tawny halos, silver edgings—great fleeces, depths of blue-black in patches, and occasionally long, low bars hanging silently a while, and then gray bulging masses rolling along stately, sometimes in long procession. The moon travels in Scorpion to-night, and dims all the stars of that constellation except fiery Antares, who keeps on shining just to the big one's side. ”

“ Evan looked up at the lunar orb again as if in irrational appeal--a moon calf bleating to his mother the moon. But the face of Luna seemed as witless as his own; there is no help in nature against the supernatural ”

“ Receiving re-echoed radio signals from Luna's pock-marked surface is already old stuff, last year's headlines. People read these reports as they go about their daily work: outwardly they do not change, but we feel confident that inwardly a very profound disturbance is moving into the hearts of humanity.
For thousands of years, as far back as recorded legend goes, the moon has been a symbol of the unattainable, of the heights of ambition and vanity and desire. ”

“ Such gentlemen, we know, love to gaze upon the moon, and to listen to the strains of nightingales; they love to see Luna clothe herself in coquettish, aureate cloud, and then glide mysteriously through the boughs of trees, and send forth clusters of silver beams to delight the eyes of her worshippers. But in this country of Oblomov's dream no one knows such a moon ”

“ The moon, a few days past the full, was riding high among small, windy clouds, and picked out the sharp eaves of the Chinese tea-houses and the straggling tops of the unpruned shrubs. 'Old Cut-throat' and his landscape-gardening! Wimsey could have fancied that the old pirate was sitting now beside his telescope in the preposterous pagoda, chuckling over his riddling testament and counting the craters of the moon. "If Luna, there is silver." ”

“ And aye strange murmurs o'er the mountains roll'd,
As if from sprite immured in cavern lone,
While higher rose pale Luna to behold
Our mystic orgies, where no light had shone,
For many and many a year of silence—but her own.
[Pg 214]
O! gracious Goddess! not in vain did shine
Thy spirit o'er the heavens; with reverent eye
We hail'd thee floating through the happy sky;
No smiles to us are half so dear as thine! ”

“ They are in sympathy with all that is bright and beautiful in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath; and it has even been suspected that the only reason why they ever assume that invisible round-about called crinoline is that, like the moon, they may move in a circle. Our greatest men, likewise, are susceptible to Luna's blandishments. ”

“ It is alarming to contemplate the effect which the moon might have upon our august earth, if it were fourteen times larger instead of fourteen times smaller in extent of surface. As it is, Luna's influences are so many and so mighty, that we will require considerable space merely to set them in order, and to substantiate them with a few facts. We believe that most, if not all, of them, are the offspring of superstition; but we shall none the less find them in every land, in every age. ”

“ The seventh Form is called Luna, the amassed Essence: What Mercury has comprized in Sulphur, that is a corporeal or substantial Hunger of all Forms, the Property of all the six Forms lies therein, and it is as a corporeal Being of all the rest; this Property is as a Wife of all the other Forms; for the other Forms do all cast their Desire through Sol into Luna; for in Sol they are Spiritual, and in Luna corporeal: Therefore the Moon assumes to it the Sunshine, and shines from the Sun; whatever the Sun is, and makes in the Spirit-Life in itself, the same Luna is, and makes corporeal in itself. ”

“ We wound you not with the analytic eye, nor startle you with telescopes. The scepticisms of astronomy enter not into our rubric. Are you not comely? Do you not spiritualize the darkness with one touch of your pale garment? Then what are they to us,—your dimensions and your distances? Gross vanity of knowledge! Abuse of earthly privileges!
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If we affect the abusive, shy of more ceremonious forms of address, forgive us, Luna! We make recantation, and disown our banter. We extend the hand of cordiality even to your Man. How blithe and beauteous he is! He is embodied Gentility. ”

“ That the moon stands in sympathetic relations with living vegetation is a fixed article of faith among the peasantry. They will prune their plants only when the satellite is waxing—al sottile della luna, as they say. Altogether, the moon plays a considerable part in their lore, as might be expected in a country where she used to be worshipped under so many forms. ”

“ Furthermore, the new moon, when her dark side is turned toward us, is invisible; and it is only after a reconciliation between the sun and the earth, that a bright crescent becomes visible on the side nearest to the sun, though this time Luna is not illuminated by sunlight directly received, but by sunlight reflected from the earth to the moon, and by her reflected back to us. ”

“ In Aryan theology, the personal Moon stands as Selēnē beside the more anthropomorphic forms of Hekatē and Artemis, [738] as Luna beside the less understood Lucina, and Diana with her borrowed attributes, [739] while our Teutonic forefathers were content with his plain name of Moon. [740] As for lunar survivals in the higher religions, they are much like the solar. Monotheist as he is, the Moslem still claps his hands at sight of the new moon, and says a prayer. ”

“ To such an extent, in the earlier ages of the world had the female been regarded as the Creator, that in many countries where her worship subsequently became identified with that of the moon, Luna was adored as the producer of the sun. According to the Babylonian creation tablets, the moon was the most important heavenly body. In later ages, the gender of the sun and the moon seems to be exceedingly variable. The Achts of Vancouver's Island worship sun and moon—the sun as female, the moon as male. (37) In some of the countries of Africa the moon is adored as female and sun-worship is unknown. ”

“ In the nineteenth century as well as in the dark ages, in London as well as in the ends of the earth, men of all colours and clans are found turning their faces heavenward to read their duty and destiny in the oracular face of the moon. Many consult their almanacks more than their Bibles, and follow the lunar phases as their sole interpretation of the will of God.
Among those who worship the moon as a personal deity, whether beneficent or malign, its influences are of course welcomed or dreaded as the manifestations of supreme power. ”

“ We can then conceive the intrepid lunar inhabitants venturing, as far as they can breathe, within the barren hemisphere; just like adventurous travellers on our globe, scaling lofty mountains, to obtain an extended view of the landscape. What an astonishing spectacle must burst upon the view of the lunar tourist, as soon as he fairly gets within the new hemisphere! The traveller, who has spent the night on the summit of the Rigi, to watch the rising of the sun over the snow-clad ranges of the Oberland Alps, feels rewarded for all his toil by the glorious spectacle. ”

“ Well, that is the sort of illumination which the lunar man will enjoy under these circumstances; all the features of his country will be brightly lighted up by the full earth. Of course, this earth-lighted side of the moon cannot be compared in brilliancy with the sun-lighted side, but the brightness will still be perceptible, so that when from the earth we look at the moon, we see this glow distributed all over the dark portion; that is, we observe the feebly lighted globe clasped in the brilliant arms of the crescent. ”

“ It is obvious, then, that the sunshine as it creeps over these Alpine landscapes in the moon, casting the black shadows of the peaks and craters many miles across the plains, and capping the summits of lofty mountains with light, while the lower regions far around them are yet buried in night, must clearly reveal the character of the lunar surface. Mountains that can not be seen at all when the light falls perpendicularly upon them, or, at the most, appear then merely as shining points, picture themselves by their shadows in startling silhouettes when illuminated laterally by the rising sun. ”

“ In all other respects the scene presented to the spectator on the moon was similar; but, as seen from the lunar Apennines, the glorious orb of earth shone high in the heavens; and the sun, source of the light then bathing her oceans and continents, lay far down below the level of the lunar horizon. ”

“ In precisely similar manner the Semitic moon-goddess, who followed the course of the sun, at times manifesting herself to the eyes of men, at others seeking concealment in the western flood was represented as half woman, half fish, with characteristics which make her lunar origin indisputable. ”

“ The universal state of amity among all classes of lunar creatures, and the apparent absence of every carnivorous or ferocious species, gave us the most refined pleasure, and doubly endeared to us this lovely nocturnal companion of our larger, but less favored world. ”

“ The lunar night would be lit by our own earth, a gigantic moon, presenting a surface more than thirteen times as large as that which the full moon offers us, and hanging almost stationary in the heavens, while [pg 129] exhibiting all the effects of rapid rotation upon its own axis. Those appendages of the sun, which only the spectroscope or the fleeting total eclipse can reveal to us, the corona, the chromosphere, and the prominences, would there be constantly visible. ”

“ One portion of the moon, on which the sun is shining, is brilliantly illuminated, while all in shade is dark.
While the disc of the sun appears a vast electric light of overpowering rayless brilliancy, every star and planet in the black vault of the lunar heavens is shining with steady brightness at all times; as, whether the Sun be present or absent during the long fourteen days' length of the lunar day or night, no difference on the absolutely black aspect of the lunar heavens can appear. ”

“ One thing is certain, namely, that, during some phases, the moon's surface strikingly resembles a man's countenance. We usually represent the sun and the moon with the faces of men; and in the latter case the task is not difficult. Some would say that the moon is so drawn to reproduce some lunar deity: it would be more correct to say that the lunar deity was created through this human likeness. ”

“ O thou that therein restorest to our mouldered friends the bloom of the cheek and showest to our poor frenzied heart past heavens and reflections of Eden and undulating lawns, on clouds!—Magic Genius! enter into this holy night before a man who is not asleep, and turn thy crape-covered glass to my open eye, that I may see therein, and paint, the Elysian world of light which struggles with our earthly shadow, as a pale Luna, in the double eclipse! ”

“ But whatever the former condition of the moon may have been, its existing appearance gives it a resistless fascination, and it bears so clearly the story of a vast catastrophe sculptured on its rocky face that the thoughtful observer cannot look upon it without a feeling of awe. The gigantic character of the lunar features impresses the beholder not less than the universality of the play of destructive forces which they attest. Let us make a few comparisons. Take the lunar crater called “Tycho”, which is a typical example of its kind. ”

“ I wished to see the whole—the first contact, the advance of the moon, and the successive swallowing up of the solar spots, the breaking of the last line of crescent by the lunar mountains into Bailey’s beads, the advance of the shadow through the air, the appearance of the corona and prominences at the moment of totality, the radiant streamers of the corona, the internal structure of the flames, a glance through a polariscope, a sweep round the landscape with the naked eye, the reappearance of the solar limb through Bailey’s beads, and, finally, the retreat of the lunar shadow through the air. ”

“ Most observers will agree with Schmidt, that observations and drawings of objects on the sombre depressed plains of the moon are easier and pleasanter to make than on the dazzling highlands, and that the lunar "sea" is to the working selenographer like an oasis in the desert to the traveller—a relief in this case, however, not to an exhausted body, but to a weary eye. ”

“ Is there not something a little more romantic in the moon—something to relieve the strain of all this nomenclature of words terminating in ‘us,’ and this frightful lunar geology?”
“Yes,” I said, “I believe that on the other half of the moon, which has not yet seen the sun rise, we shall find something better to your taste. But do not be too impatient. ”