"And now we looked around. What a strange orange light there was in the
north-east! what a spectral hue to the whole landscape! Was it really
the same old earth, and not another planet?
"Great is the self-denial of those who follow science. They who look
through telescopes at the time of a total eclipse are martyrs; they
severely deny themselves. The persons who can say that they have seen a
total eclipse of the sun are those who rely upon their eyes. My aids,
who touched no glasses, had a season of rare enjoyment. They saw
Mercury, with its gleam of white light, and Mars, with its ruddy glow;
they saw Regulus come out of the darkening blue on one side of the sun,
Venus shimmer and Procyon twinkle near the horizon, and Arcturus shine
down from the zenith.
"_We_ saw the giant shadow as it _left_ us and passed over the lands of
the untutored Indian; _they_ saw it as it approached from the distant
west, as it fell upon the peaks of the mountain-tops, and, in the
impressive stillness, moved directly for our camping-ground.
"The savage, to whom it is the frowning of the Great Spirit, is
awe-struck and alarmed; the scholar, to whom it is a token of the
inviolability of law, is serious and reverent.
"There is a dialogue in some of the old school-readers, and perhaps in
some of the new, between a tutor and his two pupils who had been out for
a walk. One pupil complained that the way was long, the road was dusty,
and the scenery uninteresting; the other was full of delight at the
beauties he had found in the same walk.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249