1857-1858

FIRST EUROPEAN TOUR CONTINUEDLEVERRIER AND THE PARIS OBSERVATORYROMEHARRIET HOSMEROBSERVATORY OF THE COLLEGIO ROMANOSECCHI

At this time, the feeling between astronomers of Great Britain and those of the United States was not very cordial. It was the time when Adams and Leverrier were contending to which of them belonged the honor of the discovery of the planet Neptune, and each side had its strong partisans.

Among Miss Mitchell’s papers we find the following with reference to this subject:

“... Adams, a graduate of Cambridge, made the calculations which showed how an unseen body must exist whose influences were felt by Uranus. It was a problem of great difficulty, for he had some half-dozen quantities touching Uranus which were not accurately known, and as many wholly unknown concerning the unseen planet. We think it a difficult question which involves three or four unknown quantities with too few circumstances, but this problem involved twelve or thirteen, so that x, y, z reached pretty high up into the alphabet. But Adams, having worked the problem, carried his work to Airy, the Astronomer Royal of England, and awaited his comments. A little later Leverrier, the French astronomer, completed the same problem, and waiting for no authority beyond his own, flung his discovery out to the world with the self-confidence of a Frenchman....

“... When the news of the discovery of Neptune reached this country, I happened to be visiting at the observatory in Cambridge, Mass. Professor Bond (the elder) had looked for the planet the night before I arrived at his house, and he looked again the evening that I came.

“His observatory was then a small, round building, and in it was a small telescope; he had drawn a map of a group of stars, one of which he supposed was not a star, but the planet. He set the telescope to this group, and asking his son to count the seconds, he allowed the stars to pass by the motion of the earth across the field. If they kept the relative distance of the night before, they were all stars; if any one had approached or receded from the others, it was a planet; and when the father looked at his son’s record he said, ’One of those has moved, and it is the one which I thought last night was the planet.’ He looked again at the group, and the son said, ’Father, do give me a look at the new planetyou are the only man in America that can do it!’ And then we both looked; it looked precisely like a small star, and George and I both asked, ‘What made you think last night that it was the new planet?’ Mr. Bond could only say, ’I don’t know, it looked different from the others.’

“It is always soyou cannot get a man of genius to explain steps, he leaps.

“After the discovery of this planet, Professor Peirce, in our own country, declared that it was not the planet of the theory, and therefore its discovery was a happy accident. But it seemed to me that it was the planet of the theory, just as much if it varied a good deal from its prescribed place as if it varied a little. So you might have said that Uranus was not the Uranus of the theory.

“Sir John Herschel said, ’Its movements have been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration.’ I consider it was superior to ocular demonstration, as the action of the mind is above that of the senses. Adams, in his study at Cambridge, England, and Leverrier in his closet at Paris, poring over their logarithms, knew better the locus of that outside planet than all the practical astronomers of the world put together....

“Of course in Paris I went to the Imperial Observatory, to visit Leverrier. I carried letters from Professor Airy, who also sent a letter in advance by post. Leverrier called at my hotel, and left cards; then came a note, and I went to tea.

“Leverrier had succeeded Arago. Arago had been a member of the Provisional Government, and had died. Leverrier took exactly opposite ground, politically, to that of Arago; he stood high with the emperor.

“He took me all over the observatory. He had a large room for a ballroom, because in the ballroom science and politics were discussed; for where a press is not free, salons must give the tone to public opinion.

“Both Leverrier and Madame Leverrier said hard things about the English, and the English said hard things about Leverrier.

“The Astronomical Observatory of Paris was founded on the establishment of the Academy of Sciences, in the reign of Louis XIV. The building was begun in 1667 and finished in 1672; like other observatories of that time, it was quite unfit for use.

“John Dominie Cassini came to it before it was finished, saw its defects, and made alterations; but the whole building was afterwards abandoned. M. Leverrier showed me the transit instrument and the mural circle. He has, like Mr. Airy, made the transit instrument incapable of mechanical change for its corrections of error, so that it depends for accuracy upon its faults being known and corrected in the computations.

“All the early observatories of Europe seem to have been built as temples to Urania, and not as working-chambers of science. The Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the Imperial Observatory of Paris, and the beautiful structure on Calton Hill, Edinboro’, were at first wholly useless as observatories. That of Greenwich had no steadiness, while every pillar in the astronomical temple of Edinboro’, though it may tell of the enlightenment of Greece, hides the light of the stars from the Scottish observer. Well might Struve say that ’An observatory should be simply a box to hold instruments.’

“The Leverriers speak English about as well as I do French, and we had a very awkward time of it. M. Leverrier talked with me a little, and then talked wholly to one of the gentlemen present. Madame was very chatty.

“Leverrier is very fine-looking; he is fair-haired full-faced, altogether very healthy-looking. His wife is really handsome, the children beautiful. I was glad that I could understand when Leverrier said to the children, ‘If you make any more noise you go to bed.’

“While I was there, a woman as old as I rushed in, in bonnet and shawl, and flew around the room, kissed madame, jumped the children about, and shook hands with monsieur; and there was a great amount of screaming and laughing, and all talked at once. As I could not understand a word, it seemed to me like a theatre.

“I asked monsieur when I could see the observatory, and he answered, ‘Whenever it suits your convenience.’

“December 15. I went to Leverrier’s again last evening by special invitation. Four gentlemen and three ladies received me, all standing and bowing without speaking. Monsieur was, however, more sociable than before, and shrieked out to me in French as though I were deaf.

“The ladies were in blue dresses; a good deal of crinoline, deep flounces, high necks, very short, flowing sleeves, and short undersleeves; the dresses were brocade and the flounces much trimmed, madame’s with white plush.

“The room was cold, of course, having no carpet, and a wood fire in a very small fireplace.

“The gentlemen continued standing or promenading, and taking snuff.

“Except Leverrier, no one of them spoke to me. The ladies all did, and all spoke French. The two children were present againthe little girl five years old played on the piano, and the boy of nine played and sang like a public performer. He promenaded about the room with his hands in his pockets, like a man. I think his manners were about equal to -’s, as occasionally he yelled and was told to be quiet.

“About ten o’clock M. Leverrier asked me to go into the observatory, which connects with the dwelling. They are building immense additional rooms, and are having a great telescope, twenty-seven feet in focal length, constructed.

“With Leverrier’s bad English and my bad French we talked but little, but he showed me the transit instrument, the mural circle, the computing-room, and the private office. He put on his cloak and cap, and said, ‘Voila lé directeur!’

“One room, he told me, had been Arago’s, and Arago had his bed on one side. M. Leverrier said, ‘I do not wish to have it for my room.’ He is said to be much opposed to Arago, and to be merciless towards his family.

“He showed me another room, intended for a reception-room, and explained to me that in France one had to make science come into social life, for the government must be reached in order to get money.

“There were huge globes in one room that belonged to Cassini. If what he showed me is not surpassed in the other rooms, I don’t think much of their instruments.

“M. Leverrier said he had asked M. Chacornac to meet me, but he was not there. I felt that we got on a little better, but not much, and it was evident that he did not expect me to understand an observatory. We did not ascend to the domes.

“Leverrier has telegraphic communication with all Europe except Great Britain.

“It was quite singular that they made such different remarks to me. Leverrier said that they had to make science popular.

“Airy said, ’In England there is no astronomical public, and we do not need to make science popular.’

“Ja, 1858. I am in Rome! I have been here four days, and already I feel that I would rather have that four days in Rome than all the other days of my travels! I have been uncomfortable, cold, tired, and subjected to all the evils of travelling; but for all that, I would not have missed the sort of realization that I have of the existence of the past of great glory, if I must have a thousand times the discomfort. I went alone yesterday to St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and today, taking Murray, I went alone to the Roman Forum, and stood beside the ruined pórticos and the broken columns of the Temple. Then I pushed on to the Coliseum, and walked around its whole circumference. I could scarcely believe that I really stood among the ruins, and was not dreaming! I really think I had more enjoyment for going alone and finding out for myself. Afterwards the Hawthornes called, and I took Mrs. H. to the same spot....

“I really feel the impressiveness of Rome. All Europe has been serious to me; Rome is even sad in its seriousness. You cannot help feeling, in the Coliseum, some little of the influence of the scenes that have been enacted there, even if you know little about them; you must remember that the vast numbers of people who have been within its walls for ages have not been common minds, whether they were Christian martyrs or travelling artists....

“I think if I had never heard before of the reputation of the pictures and statues of the Vatican, I should have perceived their superiority. There is more idea of action conveyed by the statuary than I ever received beforethey do not seem to be dead.

“January 25. I have finer rooms than I had in Paris, but the letting of apartments is better managed in Paris. There you always find a concierge, who tells you all you want to know, and who speaks several languages. In Rome you enter a narrow, dark passage, and look in vain for a door. Then you go up a flight of stairs, and see a door with a string; you pull the string, and a woman puts her mouth to a square hole, covered with tin punctured with holes, and asks what you want. You tell her, and she tells you to go up higher; you repeat the process, and at last reach the rooms. The higher up the better, because you get some sun, and one learns the value of sunlight. I saw no sun in Paris in my room, and here I have it half of the day, and it seems very pleasant.

“All the customs of the people differ from those of Paris....

“A little of Italian art enters into the ornaments of rooms and furniture, but anything like mechanical skill seems to be unheard of; and I dare say the pretty stamp used on the butter I have, which represents some antique picture, was cut by some northern hand. I could make a better cart than those that I see on the streets, and I could almost make as good horses as those that draw them!...

“It is Holy Week. I have spent seven hours at a time at St. Peter’s, in terrible crowds, for ten days, and now I go no more. The ladies are seated, but as the ceremonies are in different parts of the immense building, they rush wildly from one to the other; with their black veils they look like furies let loose! I stayed five hours to-day to see the Pope wash feet, which was very silly; for I saw mother wash them much more effectually twenty years ago!

“The crowd is better worth seeing than the ceremony, if one could only see it without being in it. I shall not try to hear the ’Miserere’I have given up the study of music! Since I failed to appreciate Mario, I sha’n’t try any more!

“I go to the Storys’ on Sunday evening to look at St. Peter’s lighting up.

“March 21. I have been to vespers at St. Peter’s. They begin an hour before sunset. When my work is done for the day, I walk to St. Peter’s. This is Sunday, and the floor was full of kneeling worshippers, but that makes no difference. I walk about among them.

“I was there an hour to-day before I saw a person that I knew; then I met the Nicholses and went with them into a side chapel to hear vespers. Then I saw next the Waterstons, then Miss Lander; but I was unusually short of friends, I generally meet so many more.

“There were kneeling women to-day with babies in their arms. The babies of the lower classes have their legs so wrapped up that they cannot move them; they look like small pillows even when they are six months old. I think it must dwarf them. We Americans are a tall people. I am a very tall woman here. I think that P.’s height would cause a sensation in the streets. My servant admires my height very much.

“March 22. I called on Miss Bremer to-day, having heard that she desired to see me. She is a ‘little woman in black,’ but not so plain; her face is a little red, but her complexion is fair and the expression very pleasing. She chatted away a good deal; asked me about astronomy, and how I came to study it. I told her that my father put me to it, and she said she was just writing a story on the affection of father and daughter. She told me I had good eyes. It is a long time now since any one has told me that!

“Miss Bremer and Mrs. W. met in my room and remained an hour. Miss Bremer is quiet and unpretending. Mrs. W. is flashy and brilliant, and, as I usually say when I don’t understand a person, a little insane; she had the floor all the time after she came in. She gave a sketch of her life from her birth up, mentioning incidentally that she had been a belle, surrounded with beaux, the pride of her parents, with a reputation for intellect, etc.

“I had been urging Miss Bremer into an interesting talk before Mrs. W. appeared, and I felt what a pity it was that she hadn’t the same propensity to talk that the latter had. She talked very pleasantly, however, and I thought what a pity it was that I shall not see her again; for I leave Rome in three days for Florence.

“I was in Rome for a winter, an idler by necessity for six weeks. It is the very place of all the world for an idler.

“On the pleasant days there are the ruins to visit, the Campagna to stroll over, the villas and their grounds to gather flowers in, the Forum to muse in, the Pincian Hill or the Capitoline for a gossiping walk with some friend.

“On rainy days it is all art. There are the cathedrals, the galleries, and the studios of the thousand artists; for every winter there are a thousand artists in Rome.

“A rainy day found me in the studio of Paul Akers. As I was looking at some of his models, the studio door opened and a pretty little girl, wearing a jaunty hat and a short jacket, into the pockets of which her hands were thrust, rushed into the room, seemingly unconscious of the presence of a stranger, began a rattling, all-alive talk with Mr. Akers, of which I caught enough to know that a ride over the Campagna was planned, as I heard Mr. Akers say, ’Oh, I won’t ride with youI’m afraid to!’ after which he turned to me and introduced Harriet Hosmer.

“I was just from old conservative England, and I had been among its most conservative people. I had caught something of its old musty-parchment ideas, and the cricket-like manners of Harriet Hosmer rather troubled me. It took some weeks for me to get over the impression of her madcap ways; they seemed childish.

“I went to her studio and saw ‘Puck,’ a statue all fun and frolic, and I imagined all was fun to the core of her heart.

“As a general rule, people disappoint you as you know them. To know them better and better is to know more and more weaknesses. Harriet Hosmer parades her weaknesses with the conscious power of one who knows her strength, and who knows you will find her out if you are worthy of her acquaintance. She makes poor jokesshe’s a little rudea good deal eccentric; but she is always true.

“In the town where she used to live in Massachusetts they will tell you a thousand anecdotes of her vagariesbut they are proud of her.

“She does not start on a false scent; she knows the royal character of the game before she hunts.

“A lady who is a great rider said to me a few days since: ’Of course I do not ride like Harriet Hosmer, but, if you will notice, there is method in Harriet Hosmer’s madness. She does not mount a horse until she has examined him carefully.’

“At the time when I saw her, she was thinking of her statue of Zenobia. She was studying the history of Palmyra, reading up on the manners and customs of its people, and examining Eastern relics and costumes.

“If she heard that in the sacristy of a certain cathedral, hundreds of miles away, were lying robes of Eastern queens, she mounted her horse and rode to the spot, for the sake of learning the lesson they could teach.

“Day after day alone in her studio, she studied the subject. Think what knowledge of the country, of the history of the people, must be gathered, must be moulded, to bring into the face and bearing of its queen the expression of the race! Think what familiar acquaintance with the human form, to represent a lifelike figure at all!

“For years after I came home I read the newspapers to see if I could find any notice of the statue of Zenobia; and I did at length see this announcement: ’The statue of Zenobia, by Miss Hosmer, is on exhibition at Childs & Jenks’.’

“It was after five years. All through those five years, Miss Hosmer had kept her projects steadily turned in this direction.

“Whatever may be the criticism of art upon her work, no one can deny that she is above the average artist.

“But she is herself, as a woman, very much above herself in art. If there came to any struggling artist in Rome the need of a friend,and of the thousand artists in Rome very few are successful,Harriet Hosmer was that friend.

“I knew her to stretch out a helping hand to an unfortunate artist, a poor, uneducated, unattractive American, against whom the other Americans in Rome shut their houses and their hearts. When the other Americans turned from the unsuccessful artist, Harriet Hosmer reached forth the helping hand.

“When Harriet Hosmer knew herself to be a sculptor, she knew also that in all America was no school for her. She must leave home, she must live where art could live. She might model her busts in the clay of her own soil, but who should follow out in marble the delicate thought which the clay expressed? The workmen of Massachusetts tended the looms, built the railroads, and read the newspapers. The hard-handed men of Italy worked in marble from the designs put before them; one copied the leaves which the sculptor threw into the wreaths around the brows of his heroes; another turned with his tool the folds of the drapery; another wrought up the delicate tissues of the flesh; none of them dreamed of ideas: they were copyists,the very hand-work that her head needed.

“And to Italy she went. For her school she sought the studio of Gibsonthe greatest sculptor of the time.

“She resolved ‘To scorn delights and live laborious days;’ and there she has lived and worked for years.

“She fashions the clay to her idealevery little touch of her fingers in the clay is a thought; she thinks in clay.

“The model finished and cast in the dull, hard, inexpressive plaster, she stands by the workmen while they put it into the marble. She must watch them, for a touch of the tool in the wrong place might alter the whole expression of the face, as a wrong accent in the reader will spoil a line of poetry.

“COLLEGIO ROMANO; SECCHI. There was another observatory which had a reputation and was known in America. It was the observatory of the Collegio Romano, and was in the monastery behind the Church of St. Ignasio. Its director was the Father Secchi who had visited the United States, and was well known to the scientists of this country.

“I said to myself, ’This is the land of Galileo, and this is the city in which he was tried. I knew of no sadder picture in the history of science than that of the old man, Galileo, worn by a long life of scientific research, weak and feeble, trembling before that tribunal whose frown was torture, and declaring that to be false which he knew to be true. And I know of no picture in the history of religion more weakly pitiable than that of the Holy Church trembling before Galileo, and denouncing him because he found in the Book of Nature truths not stated in their own Book of Godforgetting that the Book of Nature is also a Book of God.

“It seems to be difficult for any one to take in the idea that two truths cannot conflict.

“Galileo was the first to see the four moons of Jupiter; and when he announced the fact that four such moons existed, of course he was met by various objections from established authority. One writer declared that as astrologers had got along very well without these planets, there could be no reason for their starting into existence.

“But his greatest heresy was this: He was tried, condemned, and punished for declaring that the sun was the centre of the system, and that the earth moved around it; also, that the earth turned on its axis.

“For teaching this, Galileo was called before the assembled cardinals of Rome, and, clad in black cloth, was compelled to kneel, and to promise never again to teach that the earth moved. It is said that when he arose he whispered, ‘It does move!’

“He was tried at the Hall of Sopre Minerva. In fewer than two hundred years from that time the Church of St. Ignasio was built, and the monastery on whose walls the instruments of the modern observatory stand.

“It is a very singular fact, but one which seems to show that even in science ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church,’ that the spot where Galileo was tried is very near the site of the present observatory, to which the pope was very liberal.

“From the Hall of Sopre Minerva you make but two turns through short streets to the Fontenelle de Borghese, in the rear of which stands the present observatory.

“Indeed, if a cardinal should, at the Hall of Sopre Minerva, call out to Secchi, ‘Watchman, what of the night?’ Secchi could hear the question; and no bolder views emanate from any observatory than those which Secchi sends out.

“I sent a card to Secchi, and awaited a call, well satisfied to have a little more time for listless strolling among ruins and into the studios. And so we spent many an hour: picking up land shells from the top of the Coliseum, gathering violets in the upper chambers of the Palace of the Caesars,for the overgrown walls made climbing very easy,or, resting upon some broken statue on the Forum, we admired the arches of the Temple of Peace, thrown upon the rich blue of the sunny skies.

“Returning one day from a drive, I met two priests descending one of the upper flights of stairs in the house where I lived. As my rooms had been blessed once, and holy water sprinkled upon them, I thought perhaps another process of that kind had just been gone through, and was about to pass them, when one of them, accosting me, asked if I were the Signorine Mitchell,changing his Italian to good English as he saw that I was, and introducing himself as Father Secchi. He told me that the younger man was a young religieux, and the two turned and went back with me.

“I recalled, as I saw Father Secchi, an anecdote I had heard, no way to his credit,except for ingenious trickery. It was said that coming to America he brought with him the object-glass of a telescope, at a time when scientific apparatus paid a high duty. Being asked by some official what the article was, he replied, ‘My looking-glass,’ and in that way passed it off as personal wardrobe, so escaped the duty. (It may have been De Vico.)

“Father Secchi had brought with him, to show me, negatives of the planet Saturn,the rings showing beautifully, although the image was not more than half an inch in size.

“I was ignorant enough of the ways of papal institutions, and, indeed, of all Italy, to ask if I might visit the Roman Observatory. I remembered that the days of Galileo were days of two centuries since. I did not know that my heretic feet must not enter the sanctuary,that my woman’s robe must not brush the seats of learning.

“The Father’s refusal was seen in his face at once, and I felt that I had done something highly improper. The Father said that he would have been most happy to have me visit him, but he had not the powerit was a religious institutionhe had already applied to his superior, who was not willing to grant permissionthe power lay with the Holy Father or one of his cardinals. I was told that Mrs. Somerville, the most learned woman in all Europe, had been denied admission; that the daughter of Sir John Herschel, in spite of English rank, and the higher stamp of Nature’s nobility, was at that time in Rome, and could not enter an observatory which was at the same time a monastery.

“If I had before been mildly desirous of visiting the observatory, I was now intensely anxious to do so. Father Secchi suggested that I should see Cardinal Antonelli in person, with a written application in my hand. This was not to be thought ofto ask an interview with the wily cardinal!

FROM A LETTER TO HER FATHER.

... I am working to get admitted to see the observatory, but it cannot be done without special permission from the pope, and I don’t like to be “presented.” If I can get permission without the humbug of putting on a black veil and receiving a blessing from Pius, I shall; but I shrink from the formality of presentation. I know thou’d say “Be presented.”

“Our minister at that time had the reputation of being very careless of the needs and wishes of his countrymen, and I was not surprised to find a long delay.

“In the course of my waiting, I had told my story to a young Italian gentleman, the nephew of a monseigneur; a monseigneur being next in rank to a cardinal. He assured me that permission would never be obtained by our minister.

“After a fortnight’s waiting I received a permit, written on parchment, and signed by Cardinal Antonelli.

“When the young Italian next called, I held the parchment up in triumph, and boasted that Minister had at length moved in the matter. The young man coolly replied, ’Yes, I spoke to my uncle last evening, and asked him to urge the matter with Cardinal Antonelli; but for that it would never have come!’ There had been ‘red tape,’ and I had not seen it.

“At the same time that the formal missive was sent to me, a similar one was sent to Father Secchi, authorizing him to receive me. The Father called at once to make the arrangements for my visit. I made the most natural mistake! I supposed that the doors which opened to one woman, opened to all, and I asked to take with me my Italian servant, a quick-witted and bright-eyed woman, who had escorted me to and from social parties in the evening, and who had learned in these walks the names of the stars, receiving them from me in English, and giving back to me the sweet Italian words; and who had come to think herself quite an astronomer. Father Secchi refused at once. He said I was to meet him at the Church of St. Ignasio at one and a half hours before Ave Marie, and he would conduct me through the church into the observatory. My servant might come into the church with me. The Ave Marie bell rings half an hour after sunset.

“At the appointed time, the next fine day,and all days seem to be fine,we set out on our mission.

“When we entered the church we saw, far in the distance, Father Secchi, standing just behind a pillar. He slipped out a little way, as much as to say, ‘I await you,’ but did not come forward to meet us; so the woman and I passed along through the rows of kneeling worshippers, by the strolling students, and past the lounging touristswho, guide-book in hand, are seen in every foreign churchuntil we came to the standpoint from which the Father had been watching us.

“Then the Italian woman put up a petition, not one word of which I could understand, but the gestures and the pointing showed that she begged to go on and enter the monastery and see the observatory. Father Secchi said, ‘No, the Holy Father gave permission to one only,’ and alone I entered the monastery walls.

“Through long halls, up winding staircases, occasionally stopped by some priest who touched his broad hat and asked ‘Parlate Italiano?’ occasionally passed by students, often stopped by pictures on the walls,once to be introduced to a professor; then through the library of the monastery, full of manuscripts on which monks had worked away their lives; then through the astronomical library, where young astronomers were working away theirs, we reached at length the dome and the telescope.

“One observatory is so much like another that it does not seem worth while to describe Father Secchi’s. This observatory has a telescope about the size of that at Washington (about twelve inches). Secchi had no staff, and no prescribed duties. The base of the observatory was the solid foundation of the old Roman building. The church was built in 1650, and the monastery in part at that time, certainly the dome of the room in which was the meridian instrument.

“The staircase is cut out of the old Roman walls, which no roll of carriage, except that of the earthquake chariot, can shake.

“Having no prescribed duties, Secchi could follow his fancieshe could pick up comets as he picked up bits of Mosaic upon the Roman forum. He learns what himself and his instruments can do, and he keeps to that narrow path.

“He was at that time much interested in celestial photography.

“Italy must be the very paradise of astronomers; certainly I never saw objects so well before; the purity of the air must be very superior to ours. We looked at Venus with a power of 150, but it was not good. Jupiter was beautiful, and in broad daylight the belts were plainly seen. With low powers the moon was charming, but the air would not bear high ones.

“Father Secchi said he had used a power of 2,000, but that 600 was more common. I have rarely used 400. Saturn was exquisite; the rings were separated all around; the dusky ring could be seen, and, of course, the shadow of the ball upon the ring.

“The spectroscopic method of observing starlight was used by Secchi as early as by any astronomer. By this method the starlight is analyzed, and the sunlight is analyzed, and the two compared. If it does not disclose absolutely what are the peculiarities of starlight and sunlight, relatively, it traces the relationship.

“In order to be successful in this kind of observation, the telescope must keep very accurately the motion of the earth in its axis; and so the papal government furnishes nice machinery to keep up with this motion,the same motion for declaring whose existence Galileo suffered! The two hundred years had done their work.

“I should have been glad to stay until dark to look at nebulae, but the Father kindly informed me that my permission did not extend beyond the daylight, which was fast leaving us, and conducting me to the door he informed me that I must make my way home alone, adding, ’But we live in a civilized country.’

“I did not express to him the doubt that rose to my thoughts! The Ave Marie bell rings half an hour after sunset, and before that time I must be out of the observatory and at my own house.”