The Mtisic of the Spheres 85 



in the pines. There were a number of little mete- 

 ors, and one splendid one, which came perpen- 

 dicular with a great train of light, and so swiftly, 

 disappearing only on the horizon, that I am sure it 

 was an aerolite, and reached the earth not very far 

 away. I concluded to listen, to discover if I could 

 hear the music of the spheres. That the celestial 

 spheres do make audible music it were heresy to 

 doubt. There is no tradition better established, 

 nor one that can show an equal array of great 

 names and high authorities, reaching from Pythag- 

 oras to Kepler, over two thousand years of unques- 

 tioned acceptance by the greatest theologians, 

 philosophers, and poets of the world. No straight- 

 away, thorough-going traditionalist like myself can 

 ever doubt it. This celestial choir, according to 

 Timaeus, commenting on Pythagoras, spans the 

 octave thus: The siren who sings between the earth 

 and the first vitreous firmament has one tone; she 

 who sings between the firmament of the moon and 

 that of Mercury, half a tone; a half-tone thence to 

 Venus; one and a half to the sun (the Ptolemaic 

 system, mind you); one and a half from the sun to 

 Mars; one and a half from Mars to Jupiter; and so 

 on out to the sphere into the inner surface of which 

 the spangle-nails of the fixed stars are driven. A 

 tone stands for 14,286 miles. The sun is distant 

 500,000 miles, and the firmament of the fixed stars 

 500,000 miles farther, the whole radius of the 

 universe being 1,000,000 miles, and its diameter 



