ded. The largest orbs, of course, we must expect to find rolling
through the widest vacancies of Space.

I remarked, just now, that to convey an idea of the interval between our
Sun and any one of the other stars, we should require the eloquence of
an archangel. In so saying, I should not be accused of exaggeration;
for, in simple truth, these are topics on which it is scarcely possible
to exaggerate. But let us bring the matter more distinctly before the
eye of the mind.

In the first place, we may get a general, _relative_ conception of the
interval referred to, by comparing it with the inter-planetary spaces.
If, for example, we suppose the Earth, which is, in reality, 95 millions
of miles from the Sun, to be only _one foot_ from that luminary; then
Neptune would be 40 feet distant; _and the star Alpha Lyrae, at the very
least_, 159.

Now I presume that, in the termination of my last sentence, few of my
readers have noticed anything especially objectionable--particularly
wrong. I said that the distance of the Earth from the Sun being taken at
_one foot_, the distance of Neptune would be 40 feet, and that of Alpha
Lyrae, 159. The proportion between one foot and 159 has appeared,
perhaps, to convey a sufficiently definite impression of the proportion
between the two intervals--that of the Earth from the Sun and that of
Alpha Lyrae from the same luminary. But my account of the matter should,
in reality, have run thus:--The distance of the Earth from the Sun being
taken at one foot, the distance of Neptune would be 40 feet, and that of
Alpha Lyrae, 159----_miles_:--that is to say, I had assigned to Alpha Lyrae,
in my first statement of the case, only the 5280_th_ _part_ of that
distance which is the _least distance possible_ at which it can actually
lie.

To proceed:--However distant a mere _planet_ is, yet when we look at it
through a telescope, we see it under a certain form--of a certain
appreciable size. Now I have already hinted at the probable bulk of many
of the stars; nevertheless, when we view any one of them, even through
the most powerful telescope, it is found to present us with _no form_,
and consequently with _no magnitude_ whatever. We see it as a point and
nothing more.

Again;--Let us suppose ourselves walking, at night, on a highway. In a
field on one side of the road, is a line of tall objects, say trees, the
figures of which are distinctly defined against the background of the
sky. This line of