Seven Stars

“ Her rays, no longer filtered through the vapoury atmosphere of the terrestrial globe, shone through the glass, filling the air in the interior of the projectile with silvery reflections. The black curtain of the firmament in reality heightened the moon's brilliancy, which in this void of ether unfavourable to diffusion did not eclipse the neighbouring stars. The heavens, thus seen, presented quite a new aspect, and one which the human eye could never dream of. One may conceive the interest with which these bold men watched the orb of night, the great aim of their journey. ”

“ On the occasion she wore the mummy robe and zone and the jewel which Queen Tera had worn in her hair. On her breast, set in a ring of gold make like a twisted lotus stalk, she wore the strange Jewel of Seven Stars which held words to command the God of all the worlds. At the marriage the sunlight streaming through the chancel windows fell on it, and it seemed to glow like a living thing.
The graven words may have been of efficacy; for Margaret holds to them, and there is no other life in all the world so happy as my own.
We often think of the great Queen, and we talk of her freely. ”

“ The whole extent of the celestial sphere swarmed with stars and constellations of wonderful purity, enough to drive an astronomer out of his mind! On one side the sun, like the mouth of a lighted oven, a dazzling disc without a halo, standing out on the dark background of the sky! On the other, the moon returning its fire by reflection, and apparently motionless in the midst of the starry world. Then, a large spot seemingly nailed to the firmament, bordered by a silvery cord: it was the earth! ”

“ She seems to have seen through the weakness of her own religion, and even prepared for emergence into a different world. All her aspirations were for the North, the point of the compass whence blew the cool invigorating breezes that make life a joy. From the first, her eyes seem to have been attracted to the seven stars of the Plough from the fact, as recorded in the hieroglyphics in her tomb, that at her birth a great aerolite fell, from whose heart was finally extracted that Jewel of Seven Stars which she regarded as the talisman of her life. ”

“ and as I emerge on deck the ordered arrangement of the stars meets my eye, unclouded, infinitely wearisome. There they are: stars, sun, sea, light, darkness, space, great waters; the formidable Work of the Seven Days, into which mankind seems to have blundered unbidden. Or else decoyed. ”

“ For, as they wistfully gazed upward upon heaven, the Chaldeans asserted that (the seven stars) [2] contain a reason for the efficient causes of the occurrence of all the events that happen unto us, and that the parts of the fixed zodiacal signs co-operate (in this influence) . ”

“ This was a terrible revenge, I may tell you, in Egyptian mythology; for without a name no one can after death be introduced to the Gods, or have prayers said for him. Therefore, she had intended her resurrection to be after a long time and in a more northern land, under the constellation whose seven stars had ruled her birth. ”

“ The beginner must first obtain an acquaintance with this group of seven stars, and then his further progress in this branch of astronomy will be greatly facilitated. The Great Bear is, indeed, a splendid constellation, and its only rival is to be found in Orion, which contains more brilliant stars, though it does not occupy so large a region in the heavens. ”

“ I have been looking over the writings again; and I find that in seven places round this corner are the symbols of the constellation which we call the Plough, which Queen Tera held to rule her birth and her destiny. ”

“ Trelawny, holding his daughter’s hand in his, went on with his discourse:
“Now, as to the time at which Queen Tera intended her resurrection to take place! We are in contact with some of the higher astronomical calculations in connection with true orientation. As you know, the stars shift their relative positions in the heavens; but though the real distances traversed are beyond all ordinary comprehension, the effects as we see them are small. Nevertheless, they are susceptible of measurement, not by years, indeed, but by centuries. ”

“ But the little Star found herself all alone, and as she looked about her she saw that each Star was in its accustomed place, and that each light was more brilliant than it had ever been before. Even the dark clouds had vanished, and a little child looked up at the Sky from her bedroom window and said, “O, mother dear, see how beautiful are the stars to-night! They are God’s jewels, set in His Crown of Glory, aren’t they? If we are very good shall we be beautiful stars some day and shine for Him?” ”

“ Surely it was that this tale of Starlight, Starlight Expresses and Star Caves, told as simply as running water, revealed the entire Universe—as One, and that in this mighty, splendid thing each of them nested safe and comfortable. The world was really thinking, and all lay fluttering in the grand, magnificent old Net of Stars. What people think, they are. All can think Beauty. And sympathy—to feel with everything—was the clue; for sympathy is love, and to love a star was to love a neighbour. ”

“ That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. ”

“ The star Septentrion is, for the peoples of the North and above all for the shepherd, the seaman and the wayfarer, the star of stars. A hundred legends embody its mystery, its steadfast incalculable service, its unswerving isolation over the Pole. Polaris, the North Star, the Pole-Star, the Lodestar, the Seaman’s Star, the Star of the Sea, the Gate of Heaven, Phœnice, Cynosure, how many names, in all languages, at all times. ”

“ It is evident, on the most casual glance at the sky, that in the words of Scripture, 'One star differeth from another star in glory.' There are [pg 234] stars of every degree of brilliancy, from the sparkling white lustre of Sirius or Vega, down to the dim glimmer of those stars which are just on the edge of visibility, and are blotted out by the faintest wisp of haze. ”

“ It is always an interesting question how many stars in the cluster can be seen with the naked eye. Many persons can detect only six, but better, or more trained, eyes see seven, or even nine. The telescope and photography reveal thousands thickly sprinkled over the space of sky that they occupy, or immediately around them. ”

“ The stars ran loose about the sky, Wasting their beauty recklessly, Singing and dancing, Shooting and prancing, Until the Pole Star took command, Changing each wild, disordered band Into a lamp to guide the land-- A constellation. ”

“ This star glowed as brightly as the planet Venus, which outshines every star in the sky. It was so bright that it was even visible in the daytime! This brilliancy then commenced to diminish, the star growing fainter and fainter until in about a year and a half it had completely disappeared.
While new stars have been noted during the course of centuries, the appearance of one is always so unusual that it stands out against the background of the sky with almost a disquieting effect. ”

“ Round the world that day, two hours before the dawn, went the pallid great white star, fading only as it sank westward and the sun mounted above it. Everywhere man marveled at it, but of all those who saw it none could have marveled more than those sailors, habitual watchers of the stars, who far away at sea had heard nothing of its advent and saw it now rise like a pigmy moon and climb zenithward and hang overhead and sink westward with the passing of the night. ”

“ After once recognizing a few of these constellations or beholding through a telescope the glories of a double star or the face of a distant world, one will never again fail through indifference to raise his eyes to the heavens. There is one thing certain—if all the wondrous phenomena of visible stars could be seen on but one of the nights of our long ride about the sun, the civilized world would spend its last cent on glasses and sit up until dawn to feast its eyes on the sublimity of the spectacle. ”

“ By darkened images we may figure something vaguely akin, as when in rare moments under the stars the big dreamy heart of childhood is pervaded with quiet and brimmed full with love. Dear children of the world, so tired today—so weary seeking after the light. Would you recover strength and immortal vigor? Not one star alone, your star, shall shed its happy light upon you, but the All you must adore. Something intimate, secret, unspeakable, akin to thee, will emerge silently, insensibly, and ally itself with thee as thou gatherest thyself from the four quarters of the earth. ”

“ The silence and damp of the earth revived her, and the sensation of the cold stone, against which she was leaning, was agreeable. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty sky, and out of the mysterious spring twilight there came a strange and ultimate yearning, a craving which nothing she had ever known could assuage. But those stars—could they tell her nothing? One, large almost as the moon itself, flamed up in the sky, and a voice within her whispered that that was her star, that it held the secret of her destiny. ”

“ Only the gate of heaven itself seems withdrawn from vision. Star-drift, in soft luminous puffs, besprinkles the great violet dome: planet and fixed star, great and small, dust over the immeasurable width with ten million sparkling lights. On most nights it is the stars that seem so far away, but to-night, by quiet Ullswater, they discover themselves as milestones near us on the way to that distant blue curtain which is the nearer boundary of heaven itself. More comprehensible is the element beneath us, where over plunging depths are mirrored the twinkling stars. ”

“ Where joy still sings, her garland in her hand,
Built on the sand, oh God, built on the sand!
THE STAR. I HAD a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led,
But when I sang of its splendour the world in its wisdom said:
"Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when
He hymns but stars unbeholden of us his fellows of men;
Glow-worms we see and marshlights; sing us sweet songs of those
For the guerdons we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose ”

“ A star shone in heaven beyond all the other stars, and its light was inexpressible, and its novelty struck terror into men's minds. All the rest of the stars, together with the sun and moon, were the chorus to this star ”

“ One star down quite low, near the horizon, and one almost in a straight line above, and one at either side equal distances apart, like an old four-cornered kite. You must imagine the cross. But it’s hardly what it’s cracked up to be!” And we blink at the stars, and they blink at us, and we feel strangely unreal and turned about. ”

“ Beautiful clear sunsets of rose, gold-green, and crimson, with one big, pure radiant star ever like a censor over them; every [Pg 115] night the stars more deeply and thickly sown and growing ever softer and more brilliant as the boats neared the tropics; every day dawn rich with beauty and richer for the dewy memories of the dawns that were left behind. ”

“ The tremendous truth that on a starry night we look, in every direction, into an almost endless vista of suns beyond suns and systems upon systems, was too overwhelming for comprehension by the inventors of the constellations. So they amused themselves, like imaginative children, as they were, by tracing the outlines of men and beasts formed by those pretty lights, the stars. They turned the starry heavens into a scroll filled with pictured stories of mythology. ”

“ Venus, the evening star, shone so clear and bright as to cast a long wake upon the wrinkled surface of the sea. There are but about fifteen hundred stars which can be counted from a ship's deck by the naked eye,—a fact which but few persons realize. ”

“ If he beams at all, it is not the hurried scintillation of the twinkling multitude around him. Rising through a moisture-laden and wind-swept sky, where the stars are like pulsating atoms, shaken apart and scattered in tinsel showers of rainbow sparks, he glows unflickering, recognizing the aerial tumult only by a deepening of [Pg 124] color which makes him the more imposing. As he mounts the heights of the sky he gleams ever brighter and ever steadier, and, casting off the tarnish of the horizon, his supereminent light glows with a splendor that is amazing. ”

“ Viewed through the window of the earth's cold and icy atmosphere, the stars seen during the winter part of the journey seem to scintillate with particular brilliancy. Since we are then passing by the most colorful stars and the most spectacular star groups the gorgeousness of these scenes is unequaled. During the summer the stars are more demure and tranquil in their light but their soft fires gleam with the gold of romance which the ancient people cast about them in journeys of the past. ”

“ It means that when the sun has dropped into the sea, Queen Tera will cease to exist as a conscious power, till sunrise; unless the Great Experiment can recall her to waking life. It means that there will be nothing whatever for you or others to fear from her in such way as we have all cause to remember. Whatever change may come from the working of the Great Experiment, there can come none from the poor, helpless, dead woman who has waited all those centuries for this night ”