Comet

“ A comet trailing its brilliant light across the darkening heavens, a spectacle focussing the gaze of millions of eyes, causing other stars to sink into insignificance by reason of its greater glow and grandeur.—Then, while the interest concerning its movements has reached its intensity, its gleaming light fades, and presently the sky is merely glittering again with the myriad stars, for the flash and the blaze of the comet have disappeared forever and it is invisible to mortal eyes. ”

“ And the attractive power of the comet, great enough to bold its gigantic mass in place through the long reaches of the fields of space, and even close up to the burning eye of the awful sun itself, holds its dust and pebbles and bowlders together until the very moment of impact with the earth. In short, they, the dust and stones, do not continue to follow the comet, because the earth has got in their way and arrested them. ”

“ It is also to be remembered that, while actually passing round the sun, the brilliancy of the comet is so overpowered by the sun that the comet often becomes invisible, just as the stars are invisible in daylight. ”

“ Worlds there at the comet's heart, worlds that were disk-shaped instead of spherical, a dozen or more of which revolved in a great ring about a single world that was larger than any of the others, and that hung motionless! Over those revolving worlds, down toward that central disk-world the cube-ships ahead of us were fleeing, and as we shot down after them I saw that it and the rim of other disks, though not illuminated by the dusky crimson glow of the encompassing comet, were bathed in light, pure white light that seemed to emanate from themselves! ”

“ The luminous and familiar star which comes forth into the quiet evening sky when the sun sets amid the amber light of an autumn evening, and the comet which started into sight, unheralded and unnamed, and flamed across the midnight sky, have no affinity, except in the Divine Mind, whence both originate. ”

“ In those days, when astronomy was little known, men believed that a comet was sent as a sign that some great event was going to happen. So now men gazed at the hairy star, and wondered what would come of it. ”

“ They range from a barely visible brush or feather of light to a phenomenon extending over a considerable arc of the heavens, which, comparatively bright near the head of the comet, becomes gradually fainter and more diffuse towards its end, fading out by gradations so insensible that a precise length cannot be assigned to it. ”

“ THE comet which is fading in the morning sky is one of the most interesting that has ever appeared. Few, if any, have ever been more brilliant, and though others have been larger, and have continued visible for a longer time, none of them have presented more remarkable phenomena. ”

“ The occasional incursion of a comet, or the periodical presence of a single such wanderer chained down from escape to outer space by planetary attraction, availed nothing to impair the symmetry of the majestic spectacle. ”

“ It is not too much to say that the generality of people regard the tail of a comet as the comet; and that though an object may be a true comet from an astronomer’s point of view, yet if it has no tail its claims go for nought with the mass of mankind. ”

“ It is evening; the sun has set, the stars have begun to shine, and a long-tailed comet is seen. Let that comet be high or low, north or south, east or west, its tail invariably points away from that point in the west where the departing sunlight still lingers. Again, a comet is watched in the early morning, and if the eye be moved from the place where the first streak of dawn is appearing to the head of the comet, then along that direction, streaming away from the sun, is found the tail of the comet. ”

“ No doubt the comet superstition existed half a century ago, as, indeed, it exists yet today, but in this case the marvelous spectacle in the sky proved less effective in inspiring terror than in awakening a desire for knowledge. ”

“ What is a comet?
Scientific men themselves do not know; how, then, can poor ordinary mortals?
A comet is the herald of pest, of war, of downfall! Let him who does not believe this show reason why he is unbelieving. In wine-growing countries it is true that a comet year is said to promise a good wine year. ”

“ The great underlying and indispensable fact that the comet comes rushing up toward the sun out of space, and then shoots round that great center of attraction by the force of its own acquired and ever-increasing impetuosity ”

“ Verses in this booklet may be copied in the public prints by giving credit as above.
[Pg 7]
The Comet wift circuit-rider of the endless skies,
Thou wanderer of the outer, unknown air,
Amid those dim, uncharted regions there,
Imagination droops—in deep surprise
Man doth behold thee, and the fearful speed
At which thou spurrest on thy flaming steed. ”

“ Almost certainly a comet which, leaving the domain of another sun, falls under the attractive influence of our own, would approach him on a path passing many millions of miles from his surface. The chances against a more direct approach are so great that they may be regarded as, to all intents and purposes, overwhelming. ”

“ That, science said, would be all. The green clouds would whirl and vanish, and there might be thunderstorms. But through the attenuated wisps of comet shine, the old sky, the old stars, would reappear, and all would be as it had been before. And since this was to happen between one and eleven in the morning of the approaching Tuesday--I slept at Monkshampton on Saturday night--it would be only partially visible, if visible at all, on our side of the earth. ”

“ As the comet approached the sun its electrical energy rapidly increased, and watching it with telescopes, for we could not withdraw our fascinated eyes from it, we could clearly behold the fearful things that went on in its nucleus. ”

“ But a truly great comet presents quite a different proposition. It, too, is apt to be detected coming out of the depths of space before the world at large can get a glimpse of it, but as it approaches the sun its aspect undergoes a marvelous change. ”

“ At first it had been an almost telescopic speck; it had brightened to the dimensions of the greatest star in the heavens; it had still grown, hour by hour, in its incredibly swift, its noiseless and inevitable rush upon our earth, until it had equaled and surpassed the moon. Now it was the most splendid thing this sky of earth has ever held. I have never seen a photograph that gave a proper idea of it. Never at any time did it assume the conventional tailed outline, comets are supposed to have. ”

“ The term comet—which signifies literally a hairy star—may be applied to all bodies that revolve about the sun in very eccentric orbits. The sudden appearance, vast dimensions, and extraordinary aspect of these celestial wanderers, together with their rapid and continually varying motions, have never failed to excite the attention and wonder of all observers. ”

“ Now, such a comet must have a period of enormous length, for the races of animals now existing upon the earth must all have been formed since that comet's last visit—on the assumption, be it remembered, that the fall of a large comet upon the sun, or rather the direct passage of the sun through the meteoric nucleus of a large comet, would excite the sun to destructive heat. ”

“ But there are no sufficient reasons for rejecting or even doubting the theory that a comet, bearing in its train a flight of many millions of meteoric masses, falling directly upon such a sun, might cause it to shine with many times its ordinary lustre, but only for a short time, a few months or weeks, or a few days, or even hours. ”

“ Then I struck the ether; the atomic engines giving out the strange hum that is peculiar when they are generating their own propulsion. Unless struk by an oncoming meteor, I was now in a region of comparative safety. I ventured a look down at the Earth.
“ 'What I beheld was a red sea of color—the Earth bathed in the crimson light. Above, spread the weird unhallowed glow of the comet. Even the moon was red. ”

“ The generation of a comet, a process in which these fiery or ethereal particles are released from matter and carried up on high, is therefore the first step and sign of a more general release of the spiritual nature and of the consequent corruption of the terrestrial objects and compounds concerned, namely: in the first place, those under the rule of the same planet as the comet in question, and, in the second place, those in the region from which the comet was sublimated. ”

“ I think there is a swarm of meteors revolving round the Sun, not in a nearly circular track like our Earth, but in an elongated track like that of a comet. I hope you remember the way in which a comet moves—loitering along slowly when it is far from the Sun, quickening up as it comes nearer, and whizzing round the sharp turn when it is closest to the Sun—what is called perihelion. ”

“ When the comet, whose executor it is, has but recently deceased, it will appear as a very brilliant periodic shower, occurring on only one or two nights exactly at the point where the comet in its journeying would have crossed the earth's track, and appearing only at the time when the comet itself would have been there. ”

“ The old man placed his finger upon the third dot from the center. Then he looked up. He pointed to the clock. It was a minute before I could comprehend. When I did I was astounded.
"'He was pointing out the Earth! The track upon the wall was but a clock-work that followed the course of the comet! This marvelous man had ridden the comet on its journey through infinity! ”

“ And ruling the calm spaciousness of that heaven was the great comet, now green-white, and wonderful for all who had eyes to see. ”

“ If some men, after their comet has called for them, are 'an unconscionable time in [Pg 223] dying,' as Charles II. said of himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy season of Easter, a phenomenon, ever fatal and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the heavens. ”

“ We at least recollect when old gentlemen, after dinner, brightened up at the mention of 'claret 1811,' merrily attributing the extraordinary merits of the liquor to the comet of that year. But comets, in the cool eye of modern science, are not without their terrors. Crossing as they often do the paths of the planets in their progress to and from their perihelia, it cannot but be that they should now and then come in contact with one of these spheres. ”

“ He declared that comets portend downfalls of kingdoms, pestilence, war, winds, or heat. This reflected the church's view that a comet was a ball of fire flung from the right hand of an angry God as a warning to mankind, usually for disbelief. Storms were begun by the devil. ”

“ But gradually, as I drew near the end, the sense of strangeness returned to me. It was more and more evident to me that this was a different humanity from any I had known, unreal, having different customs, different beliefs, different interpretations, different emotions. It was no mere change in conditions and institutions the comet had wrought. It had made a change of heart and mind. ”

“ But, secondly, it is easy to answer, even from our slight and superficial acquaintance with natural things, that there are abundant magazines of fire ready prepared, and treasured up against the day of the Lord. How soon may a comet, commissioned by him, travel down from the most distant parts of the universe? And were it to fix upon the earth, in its return from the sun, when it is some thousand times hotter than a red-hot cannon-ball, who does not see what must be the immediate consequence? ”

“ At Easter a comet appeared, which is noticed by nearly all the chroniclers. Wace thus describes it:—“Now while these things were doing a great star appeared, shining for fourteen days, with three long rays streaming towards the earth; such a star as is wont to be seen when a kingdom is about to change its king. I have seen many men who saw it, men of full age at the time, and who lived many years after. Those who would discourse of the stars call it a comet.” Our worsted astronomers have produced a very brilliant meteor, with more than twice three streams of fire issuing from it. ”

“ But the comet reveals corresponding organic changes in the course of a few days or weeks, and on a scale vastly greater than what our earth could exhibit. What is it that renders the sight of the moon's surface so disappointing? Is it not that all is motionless? There are no moving clouds, no fluctuating seas, no fleeting snow-covering, no active volcanoes; all is motionless and deathlike. Why does the surface of the sun attract such deep interest at this moment? Because we discover agencies working with intense activity. ”

“ It is very bright at its lower or broader part near the horizon, and, if there be broken clouds about, often appears like the glow of a distant conflagration, or of the rising moon, only less red, giving rise, in short, to amorphous masses of light such as have been noticed by one of your correspondents as possibly appertaining to the comet. ”

“ Notwithstanding274 its vast distance from the sun, the attraction of that great body will extend thither. It is true the pull of the sun on the comet will be of the feeblest and slightest description, on account of the enormously great distance. Still, the comet will respond in some degree, and will commence gradually to move in the direction in which the sun invites it. Perhaps centuries, or perhaps thousands, or even tens of thousands, of years will elapse before the object has gained the solar system. ”