BOOK OF THE DAMNED 209 



a procession, or migration, except that some of the bodies were 

 more elongated or lean and hungry than globular. 



He might have argued for sixty-five years. He'd have impressed 

 nobody of importance. The super-motif, or dominant, of his era, 

 was Exclusionism, and the notion of seeds in the air assimilates 

 with due disregards with that dominant. 



Or pageantries here upon our earth, and things looking down 

 upon us and the Crusades were only dust clouds, and glints of 

 the sun on shining armor were only particles of mica in dust clouds. 

 I think it was a Crusade that Read saw but that it was right, 

 relatively to the year 1851, to say that it was only seeds in the 

 wind, whether the wind blew from the sea or not. I think of 

 things that were luminous with religious zeal, mixed up, like every- 

 thing else in Intermediateness, with black marauders and from 

 gray to brown beings of little personal ambitions. There may have 

 been a Richard Coeur de Lion, on his way to right wrongs in 

 Jupiter. It was right, relatively to 1851, to say that he was a seed 

 of a cabbage. 



Prof. Coffin, U. S. N. (Jour. Frank. Inst., 88-151): 



That, during the eclipse of Aug., 1869, he had noted the passage, 

 across his telescope, of several bright flakes resembling thistle- 

 blows, floating in the sunlight. But the telescope was so focussed 

 that, if these things were distinct, they must have been so far away 

 from this earth that the difficulties of orthodoxy remain as great, 

 one way or another, no matter what we think they were 



They were "well-defined," says Prof. Coffin. 



Henry Waldner (Nature, 5-304) : 



That, April 27, 1863, he had seen great numbers of small, shining 

 bodies passing from west to east. He had notified Dr. Wolf, of the 

 Observatory of Zurich, who "had convinced himself of this strange 

 phenomenon." Dr. Wolf had told him that similar bodies had 

 been seen by Sig. Capocci, of the Capodimonte Observatory, at 

 Naples, May n, 1845. 



The shapes were of great diversity or different aspects of sim- 

 ilar shapes? 



Appendages were seen upon some of them. 



We are told that some were star-shaped, with transparent ap- 

 pendages. 



I think, myself, it was a Mohammed and his Hegira. May have 

 been only his harem. Astonishing sensation: afloat in space with 

 en millon wives around one. Anyway, it would seem that we 



