ONE EMPIRE. 313 



third generation now meets me at the window. In the cold 

 realms of space I have watched starry specks, till, with nearer 

 approach, they grew into suns; and I have darted from their 

 effulgence into other realms of starlight and frost. I am a 

 flash of divine intelligence. I am a messenger from the Infi- 

 nite, I bring tidings of the immensity of creation, of the 

 recognition of one supreme authority among all the constella- 

 tions the unity of the vast empire which stretches as far as 

 light of star has flown or electric thought has pierced." 



So I listened to the message of the starlight, and my 

 thoughts were stirred within me. They wandered through 

 the vast spaces of the silent worlds, and I saw them all 

 balanced on the invisible threads of gravitation the same 

 gravitation which drags the sands of the Cordilleras down to 

 the Gulf. I saw worlds in pairs and triples, waltzing about 

 a common center of gravity ; I traced the ellipses which they 

 make in space, and found their radii vectores describing equal 

 areas in equal times just as the moon moves round the earth 

 and the earth around the sun. No new geometry no new 

 mechanics in the systems of Sirius or Aldebaran or Polaris. 

 I saw the same ethereal pulsations flash light into being in the 

 constellation Bootes, as in the flashing of a match in my 

 study. Capella and Vega and the Earth are islands in one 

 ocean and the same waves beat on all the shores. 



My thoughts still fondly caressed the theme. They re- 

 called to me now the magical achievements of the spectro- 

 scope. What had the spectroscope done ? It had taken such 

 a ray of star-light as had come to me this evening, and become 

 its confidant. To it the little ray had recited more than to me. 

 It has revealed the fact that the orb which sent it on its way 

 was a globe of incandescent vapor. Another ray brought 

 tidings of a world beginning to liquefy ; and still another 

 bore a message which seems to mean that its parent orb is 

 approaching a stage of incrustation. These are familiar 

 thoughts to us who floated down the history of our own fire- 

 born planet. The confessions of a star seem a reminiscence 

 of the earth's infancy. What has the spectroscope further 



27 



