The star Sirius, which has been called the 'Glory 

 Pleiad- f the South ' : a thousand times larger than 

 on ' our Sun. I do not know how Merope and 

 Taygeta, Celeno and Atlas are, but Maia, 

 that shaking loveliness of purest light, has 

 been calculated to be four hundred times 

 larger than the Sun, and Electra about four 

 hundred and eighty times larger. When one 

 thinks of this mysterious majesty, so vast that 

 only the winged imagination can discern the 

 illimitable idea, all words fail : at most one 

 can but recall the solemn adjuration of the 

 shepherd -prophet Amos, 'Seek Him that 

 maketh Pleiades and Orion? or the rapt 

 ecstasy of Isaiah, ' O day star, son of the 

 morning' 



A Gaelic poet has called them the Lords 

 of Water, saying (though under different 

 names, from the Gaelic mythology) that 

 Alcyone controls the seas and the tides, that 

 Electra is mistress of flood, that Taygeta and 

 Merope and Atlas dispense rains and augment 

 rivers and feed the well-springs, and that Maia's 

 breath falls in dew. The detail is fanciful ; 

 the central thought is in accord with legend 

 and old wisdom. I do not know how far back 

 the connection of the Pleiades with water, 

 particularly rains and the rising of rivers, has 

 been traced. It runs through many ancient 



268 



