may so describe it--neighbourship with the stars. I had hitherto
scarce given a thought to astronomy, save of the vaguest kind, and all
I knew of it was derived from the recollection of one or two popular
lectures. This was pardonable in a citizen, who is never able to see
any considerable space of firmament. But when a man comes to live in
the country he can scarce remain indifferent to a pageant so sublime as
the midnight heavens. It is always with him; it obtrudes itself upon
him; it becomes in time the scenery of his life. It pleased me on
clear evenings before I slept to go out and take what I called a
star-bath, a term justified by the real sense I had of waves of soft
light and silence flowing over me, submerging and cleansing me, and
setting my soul afloat. But very soon this purely aesthetic pleasure
became also an excitement of the intellect. An immense curiosity
seized me. I desired to penetrate this lighted labyrinth of space, to
climb these shining terraces, to know where these vast roads led, in
whose profound seclusion God Himself seemed to hide. In a very humble
way I began the study of astronomy, and although I never got beyond its
elements yet my whole life was incalculably enriched by what I learned.
I sometimes felt that of all my neighbours the stars were the
friendliest and wisest. That sense of insignificance, begotten by the
pressure of immensity upon the spirit, of which so many men have
written, I never felt; my most constant feeling was a kind of gladness
which had its root in the conviction of some living friendly Power
behind and in the spectacle. The sense of insignificance, if it came
at all, was associated with the vanities of mankind. It did indeed
seem a strange thing that a man whose thoughts could walk among the
stars, should bend those thoughts to a mean eagerness for gold, a pride
in dress, or the building of palaces, which when achieved are not so
much as a single grain of dust upon an ant-hill. In a universe, whose
arithmetic employs worlds for the ciphers of its reckoning, bigness as
associated with man sounds ridiculous; and the biggest fortune or the
biggest grief are alike infinitesimal. But when the desire of bigness
passes from a man's mind, humility becomes pleasurable, and immensity
is soothing. I forgot to think of the vastness of the stars; they were
for me neighbourly and friendly presences, talking like a wise old
nurse to me of things that happened befor