V.
THE LIGHT OF THE PAST.
Thus spoke my celestial guide. Her face was glorious as the day, hereyes shone with a starry lustre, her voice was like divine music. Ilooked at the worlds about us revolving in space, and felt that a mightyharmony controlled the course of Nature.
"Now let us return to the Earth," she said, pointing to the spot whereour terrestrial Sun had disappeared. "But look again. You understand nowthat space is infinite; you will soon comprehend that time is eternal."
We crossed other constellations and came back toward the solar system. Isaw the Sun reappear, looking like a little star.
"For an instant," said she, "I am going to give you, if not divine, atleast angelic sight. Your soul shall feel the ethereal vibrations whichconstitute light itself, and shall know that the history of each worldis eternal with God. To see is to know: behold!"
Just as a microscope shows us an ant as large as an elephant, andpenetrates the infinitely small, making the invisible visible, so at theMuse's command my sight suddenly acquired an unknown power ofperception, and distinguished the Earth in space, very near the Sun,which was in eclipse, and from invisible it became visible.
I recognized it; and as I watched, its disk grew larger, looking likethe Moon a few days before the full. After a while I could distinguishthe principal geographical aspects in the growing disk,--the snowy patchat the North Pole, the outlines of Europe and Asia, the North Sea, theAtlantic, the Mediterranean. The more steadily I fixed my gaze, thebetter I could see. Details became more and more perceptible, as if Iwere gradually changing the lenses of a microscope. I recognized thegeographical form of France; but our beautiful country appeared to beentirely green,--from the Rhine to the Ocean, from the Channel to theMediterranean, as if it were covered with one immense forest. Isucceeded, however, better and better in distinguishing the slightestdetails, for the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Rhine, the Rhone, the Loire,were easily found.
"Pay great attention," murmured my companion.
As she said this, she placed the tips of her slender fingers lightly onmy brow, as though she had wished to magnetize my brain and endow myperceptive faculties with still greater power. Then I looked again moreintently at the vision, and saw before my eyes Gaul in the time ofJulius Caesar. It was during the war of independence aroused by thepatriotism of Vercingetorix.
"We are at such a distance from the Earth," said Urania, "that lightrequires all the time that separates us from Julius Caesar to reach here.Only the rays of light that left the Earth at that time come to us; andyet light travels at the rate of three hundred thousand kilometres asecond. It is fast, very fast, but it is not instantaneous. Astronomerson the Earth, who are observing stars situated as far from them as weare now, do not see them as they really are, but as they were when therays of light which they see to-day left them; that is to say, as theywere more than eighteen centuries ago.
"One never sees the stars from the Earth, nor from any point in space,as they are, but as they have been," she continued; "the farther awayfrom them one is, the more behind he is in their history.
"You observe most carefully through the telescope stars which no longerexist. Many of the stars visible to the naked eye are no longer inexistence. Many of the nebulae whose substance you analyze through thespectroscope have become suns. Many of your most beautiful red starsare extinct and dead; you would not detect them if you should go tothem.
"The light shed from all the suns which people immensity, the lightreflected into space from all the worlds irradiated by these suns,carries away through the boundless skies photographs of all thecenturies every day, every second. Looking at a star, you see it as itwas at the time the impression that you receive left it,--just as whenyou hear a clock strike, you receive the sound after it has left it, andas long after as you are far from it.
"The result is, that the history of all these worlds actually travelsthrough space, never entirely disappearing; that all past events arepresent and indestructible in the bosom of the infinite.
"The universe will endure forever. The Earth will come to an end, andsome day will be nothing but a tomb. But there will be new suns and newearths, new springs and new smiles, and life will always bloom afresh inthe limitless and endless universe.
"I wanted to show you," said she, after a pause, "how eternal time is!You have felt the infinity of space, you have understood the grandeur ofthe universe. Now your celestial journey is over. We must go back to theearth and your own home again.
"For yourself," she added, "know that study is the one source of anyintellectual value; be neither rich nor poor; keep yourself from allambition as well as from all servitude; be independent,--independence isthe rarest gift and the first condition of happiness."
Urania was still speaking in her gentle voice; but my brain was soconfused by the commotion aroused in it by so many extraordinary scenesthat I was seized by a fit of trembling. A shiver ran over me from headto foot, which was probably the cause of my abrupt awakening in a stateof great agitation. Alas! the delightful celestial journey had ended.
I looked about for Urania, but could not find her. A bright moonbeamshining through my bedroom window lightly touched the edge of a curtainand seemed vaguely to outline the aerial form of my heavenly guide; butit was only a moonbeam.
* * * * *
When I went back to the observatory the next morning, my first impulsewas to find some pretext for going to the director's study to see thecharming Muse again who had rewarded me by such a dream....
The clock had disappeared!
In its place stood a white marble bust of the illustrious astronomer.
I looked through the other rooms, even the private apartments, under athousand different excuses; but she was nowhere to be found.
I searched for days and weeks, but could neither find her nor learn whathad become of her.
I had a friend and confidant, very near my own age, although appearingolder, from his sprouting beard; he too was very fond of the ideal, andperhaps even more of a dreamer,--besides, he was the only person at theobservatory with whom I was ever on intimate terms. He shared my joysand griefs. We had the same tastes, the same ideas, the same feelings.He understood my youthful admiration for the statue, the personalitywith which my imagination had invested her, and my unhappiness at havingthus suddenly lost my dearest Urania just when I was most attached toher. He had more than once admired with me the effect of the light uponher celestial countenance, and smiled at my ecstasies like a bigbrother, even teasing me a little sharply about my affection for anidol, going so far as to call me "Camille Pygmalion." But at heart Iknew that he too loved her.
This friend--who, alas! was to be torn from me a few years later, in thevery flower of his youth, kind George Spero, exalted mind, noble heart,whose memory will be ever dear to me--was the director's privatesecretary; and his sincere affection for me was proved in this instanceby an act of kindness as graceful as it was unexpected.
When I went home one day I saw with a half-incredulous bewilderment thefamous clock standing on my chimney-piece there, just in front of me!
It was really she! How did she come there? What brought her there? Wheredid she come from?
I learned that the celebrated discoverer of Neptune had sent it to oneof the principal clock-makers in Paris to be repaired; that the latterhad received a most interesting antique astronomical clock from Chinaand had offered it in exchange, which had been accepted; and that GeorgeSpero, to whom the transaction had been intrusted, had re-purchasedPradier's work as a gift for me. His parents were glad of an opportunityto please me, in remembrance of some lessons in mathematics which I hadgiven George for his special examination.
What joy it was to see my Urania again! How happy I was to feast my eyeson her once more! That charming personification of the Muse of heavenhas never left me since. In my studious hours the beautiful statuealways stood before me, seeming to remind me of the goddess'sconversation,--to tell me t
he destinies of astronomy, to direct me inmy youthful scientific aspirations. Since then more passionate emotionshave beguiled me, captivated me, and troubled my senses; but I shallnever forget the ideal sentiment with which the Muse of the stars hadinspired me, the celestial journey on which she bore me away, theunexpected panoramas she unrolled before my eyes, the truths sherevealed to me as to the extent of the universe, nor the happiness shegave me by definitively settling my mind on the calm contemplation ofNature and science as a career.
Part Second.
GEORGE SPERO.