TO KNOW THE STARRY HEAVENS 
55 
with the naked eye as was this object. 
This comet was probably the brightest 
ever recorded. No nova has appeared 
which has been as bright as Venus, so 
far as we know. If the object were a 
comet its motion would soon carry it 
away from the brilliant sun and make 
it conspicuously visible. If a nova its 
position among the stars would not 
change but the sun’s apparent motion 
among the stars would take the sun 
eastward a degree each day and thus 
after a time enable us to see the star 
without the interference of the brilliant 
sunlight. A nova decreases in bright- 
ness rapidly. When the sun is suffi- 
ciently far from the position in which 
the object was seen we can examine the 
region and perhaps identify the object 
as a nova. 
Although careful search has been 
made, so far as I know the object has 
not been seen since its discovery. The 
report from Germany that we passed 
through the tail of a comet on August 
8 seems to be without foundation. The 
fact that the object was near the sun 
made it probable that it was a comet. 
The failure to find the object again now 
makes it more probable that the object 
was a nova. Were it not for the fact 
that the nonexistence of an intramer- 
curial planet of this brightness seems 
so conclusively proven we might think 
that it was such a planet. Several ob- 
servers of earlier times have claimed 
that they have seen such a planet. 
The Breeze. 
BY MAUD A. NEWCOMB, NEW YORK CITY. 
A fresh little breeze 
Stirs the blades of grass. 
And puffs at the butterflies 
As swiftly they pass. 
It makes the leaves dance, 
And bends the slim trees — 
Th s gay and frolicsome 
Fresh little breeze. 
It scatters the petals 
From lilac and rose, 
It frouses your hair. 
As it playfully blows. 
And it jostles you rudely. 
And never says ‘ Please” — 
But you love it — this frolicsome, 
Fresh little breeze. 
The little spring birds 
Snuggle warm in their nests, 
As the wild, merry breeze 
Rumples feathery breasts. 
And the sheep in the pasture brook 
Up to their knees 
Just sniff at this frolicsome, 
Fresh little breeze. 
The book of nature is always open 
winter and summer and is always with- 
in reach, and the print is legible if we 
have eyes to read it. But most persons 
are too preoccupied to have their atten- 
tion arrested by it — John Burroughs in 
“Field and Study.” 
August brings the jewel-weed 
To make the roadsides gay 
With amber and with topaz glints 
Like sunbeams there at play. 
— Emma Peirce. 
NATURE. 
BY HAROLD GORDON HAWKINS, WESTFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS. 
When that day comes that I shall feel no more 
The magic influence of Nature’s lure. 
When she shall cease to keep my weak soul pure 
With sagest teaching of her world-old lore. 
When I lose power to garner from her store 
Of matchless beauty thoughts that can conjure 
My mind from lesser things and swiftly sure 
Direct it to a higher plane once more ; 
When Nature’s voices cease to speak to me, 
When all her grandeur is to me as nought, 
And worthless are the bounties she may give. 
When my dull soul knows such despondency 
That it denies her works a single thought, 
Then let me die for I have ceased to live. 
