to his brain and heart. The idea that the universe is a
multitude of minute spheres circling, like specks of dust, in a dark
and boundless void, might leave us cold and indifferent, if not
bored and depressed, were it not that we identify this hypothetical
scheme with the visible splendour, the poignant intensity, and the
baffling number of the stars. So far is the object from giving value
to the impression, that it is here, as it must always ultimately be,
the impression that gives value to the object. For all worth leads us
back to actual feeling somewhere, or else evaporates into nothing
-- into a word and a superstition.

Now, the starry heavens are very happily designed to intensify the
sensations on which their beauties must rest. In the first place, the
continuum of space is broken into points, numerous enough to give
the utmost idea of multiplicity and yet so distinct and vivid that it
is impossible not to remain aware of their individuality. The
variety of local signs, without becoming organized into forms,
remains prominent and irreducible. This makes the object infinitely
more exciting than a plane surface would be. In the second place,
the sensuous contrast of the dark background, -- blacker the clearer
the night and the more stars we can see, -- with the palpitating fire
of the stars themselves, could not be exceeded by any possible
device. This material beauty adds incalculably, as we have already
pointed out, to the inwardness and sublimity of the effect. To
realize the great importance of these two elements, we need but to
conceive their absence, and observe the change in the dignity of
the result.

Fancy a map of the heavens and every star plotted upon it, even
those invisible to the naked eye: why would this object, as full of
scientific suggestion surely as the reality, leave us so
comparatively cold? Quite indifferent it might not leave us, for I
have myself watched stellar photographs with almost inexhaustible
wonder. The sense of multiplicity is naturally in no way
diminished by the representation; but the poignancy of the
sensation, the life of the light, are gone; and with the dulled
impression the keenness of the emotion disappears. Or imagine the
stars, undiminished in number, without losing any of their
astronomical significance and divine immutability, marshalled in
geometrical patterns; say in a Latin cross, with the words _In hoc
signo vinces_ in a scroll around them. The beauty of the