five cents? I trow not. Therefore you do not know how much careful
calculation, skill, and knowledge are to be had for that small piece of
money.

Therefore you cannot sit down in the evening and pore over its mystic
signs. Indeed, I fear you do not know what a zodiac is, or what the
meaning of "Cancer the Crab" and "Gemini the Twins" may be. It is more
than likely you will reply, "Oh, yes; if the Crab had a Cancer, he would
cry Gemini to the Twins"--and in that light and flippant way you will
try to hide your brutal ignorance, if a male, your shallow
understanding, if a female.

Now I have just had a sort of musty satisfaction in looking over some
old Almanacs, which dated as far back as 1727. They seem to have been
the property of somebody whose letters were W. S. His almanacs were so
prized that he had interleaved them, and then he recorded his profound
observations. He thus had learned, what I fear you have not, that the
moon had many mysterious influences besides making the tides rise and
fall, if it does. It seems, if we can believe "A Native of New England,"
who made B. Greene's Almanack for 1731, that the "Moon has dominion over
man's body," and that when she gets into "Cancer the Crab" you must
expect every sort of bedevilment in your breast and stomach. When she
gets into "Gemini," the same in your arms and shoulders. When she is in
"Scorpio" your bowels and belly are in danger, and so on all through
your body; so that we might well enough wish the moon were wholly
abolished; for the little wishy-washy light she gives to lovers and
thieves is not at all a balance for such fearful threatenings.

Who was the "Native of New England" is a secret, and well it is, for in
1727 he graced his title-page with this poem:

----Man--that Noble Creature,
Scanted of time, and stinted by Weak Nature,
That in foretimes saw jubilees of years,
As by our Ancient History appears;
Nay, which is more, even Silly Women then,
Liv'd longer time than our grave Graybeard Men.

"Graced," did I say? May we not put a _dis_ before it? "Silly Women!"
"Noble Creature!" Did the Native mean that woman then was silly and man
then noble? Well for him is it that our "Mrs. Ward Howes" and "Mrs.
Lillie Blakes" cannot make rhymes upon _his_ name; well for him that he
went his way holding his mantle before his face.

But he himself did not hold himself lightly. He knew all about Apoge and
Perige (we now spell them A