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midst. That was how she would wish to be. But then Oak was not racked by incertitude upon the inmost matter of his bosom, as was she at this moment. Oak knew all that she wished to know she felt convinced of that. If she were to go to him now at once and say no more than these few words, "What is the truth of the story?" he would feel bound in honor to tell her. It would be an inexpressible relief. No further speech would need to be uttered. He know her so well that no eccentricity of behavior in her would alarm him.

She flung a cloak round her, went to the door, and opened it. Every blade, every twig, was still. The air was yet thick with moisture, though somewhat less dense than during the afternoon, and a steady smack of drops upon the fallen leaves under the boughs was almost musical in its soothing regularity. It seemed better to be out of the house than within it, and Bathsheba closed the door and walked slowly down the lane till she came opposite to Gabriel's cottage, where he now lived alone, having left Coggan's house through being pinched for room. There was a light in one window only, and that was down-stairs. The shutters were not closed, nor was any blind or curtain drawn over the window, neither robbery nor observation being a contingency which could do much injury to the occupant of the domicile. Yes, it was Gabriel himself who was sitting up: he was reading. From her standing-place in the road she could see him plainly, sitting quite still, his light curly head upon his hand, and only occasionally looking up to snuff the candle which stood beside him. At length he looked at the clock, seemed surprised at the lateness of the hour, closed his book, and arose. He was going to bed, she knew, and if she tapped it must be done at once.

Alas for her resolve; she felt she could not do it. Not for worlds now could she give a hint about her misery to him, much less ask him plainly for information. She must suspect, and guess, and chafe, and bear it all alone. Like a homeless wanderer she lingered by the bank, as if lulled and fascinated by the atmosphere of content which seemed to spread from that little dwelling, and was so sadly lacking in her own. Gabriel appeared in an upper room, placed his light in the window-bench, and then - knelt down to pray. The contrast of the picture with her rebellious and agitated existence at this same time was too much for her to bear to look upon longer. It was not for her to make a truce with trouble by any such means. She must tread her giddy, distracting measure to its last note, as she had begun it. With a swollen heart she went again up the lane, and entered her own door.

More fevered now by a reaction from the first feelings which Oak's example had raised in her, she paused in the hall, looking at the door of the room wherein Fanny lay. She locked her fingers, threw back her head, and strained her hot hands rigidly across her forehead, saying, with a hysterical sob, "Would to God you would speak and tell me your secret, Fanny! . . . . Oh, I hope, hope it is not true!. . . . If I could only look in upon you for one little minute, I should know all !"

A few moments passed, and she added, slowly, " And I will."

Bathsheba in after times could never gauge the mood which carried her through the actions following this murmured resolution on this memorable evening of her life. At the end of a short though undefined time she found herself in the small room, quivering with emotion, a mist before her eyes, and an excruciating pulsation in her brain, standing beside the uncovered coffin of the girl whose conjectured end had so entirely engrossed her, and saying to herself in a husky voice, as she gazed within,

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'It was best to know the worst, and I know it now!" She was conscious of having brought about this situation by a series of actions done as by one in an extravagant dream; of following that idea as to method, which had burst upon her in the hall with glaring obviousness, by gliding to the top of the stairs, assuring herself by listening to the heavy breathing of her maids that they were asleep, gliding down again, turning the handle of the door within which the young girl lay, and deliberately setting herself to do

what, if she had anticipated any such undertaking at night and alone, would have horrified her, but which, when done, was not so dreadful as was the conclusive proof which came with knowing beyond doubt the last chapter of Fanny's story.

Bathsheba's head sank upon her bosom, and the breath which had been bated in suspense, curiosity, and interest, was exhaled now in the form of a whispered wail: "Oh-h-h!" she said, and the silent room added length to her moan.

Her tears fell fast beside the unconscious pair: tears of a complicated origin, of a nature indescribable, almost indefinable except as other than those of simple sorrow. Assuredly their wonted fires must have lived in Fanny's ashes when events were so shaped as to chariot her hither in this natural, unobtrusive, yet effectual manner. The one feat alone — that of dying — by which a mean condition could be resolved into a grand one, Fanny had achieved. And to that had destiny subjoined this rencounter to-night, which had, in Bathsheba's wild imagining, turned her companion's failure to success, her humiliation to triumph, her lucklessness to ascendency; it had thrown over herself a garish light of mockery, and set upon all things about her an ironical smile. Fanny's face was framed in by that yellow hair of hers; and there was no longer much room for doubt as to the origin of the curl owned by Troy. In Bathsheba's heated fancy the innocent white countenance expressed a dim triumphant consciousness of the pain she was retaliating for her pain with all the merciless rigor of the Mosaic law: "Burning for burning; wound for wound; strife for strife."

Bathsheba indulged in contemplations of escape from her position by immediate death, which, thought she, though it was an inconvenient and awful way, had limits to its inconvenience and awfulness that could not be overpassed; whilst the shames of life were measureless. Yet even this scheme of extinction by death was but tamely copying her rival's method without the reasons which had glorified it in her rival's case. She glided rapidly up and down the room, as was mostly her habit when excited, her hands hanging clasped in front of her, as she thought and in part expressed in broken words: "Oh, I hate her, yet I don't mean that I hate her, for it is grievous and wicked; and yet I hate her a little! Yes, my flesh insists upon hating her, whether my spirit is willing or no. . . . If she had only lived I could have been angry and cruel towards her with some justification; but to be vindictive towards a poor dead woman recoils upon myself. O God, have mercy! I am miserable at all this!"

Bathsheba became at this moment so terrified at her own state of mind that she looked around for some sort of refuge from herself. The vision of Oak kneeling down that night recurred to her, and with the imitative instinct which animates women she seized upon the idea, resolved to kneel, and if possible, pray. Gabriel had prayed; so would she. She knelt beside the coffin, covered her face with her hands, and for a time the room was silent as a tomb. Whether from a purely mechanical, or from any other cause, when Bathsheba arose, it was with a quieted spirit, and a regret for the antagonistic instincts which had seized upon her just before.

In her desire to make atonement she took flowers from a vase by the window, and began laying them around the dead girl's head. Bathsheba knew no other way of showing kindness to persons departed than by giving them flowers. She knew not how long she remained engaged thus. She forgot time, life, where she was, what she was doing. A slamming together of the coach-house doors in the yard brought her to herself again. An instant after, the front door opened and closed, steps crossed the hall, and her husband appeared at the entrance to the room, looking in upon her.

He beheld it all by degrees, stared in stupefaction at the scene, as if he thought it an illusion raised by some fiendish incantation. Bathsheba, pallid as a corpse on end, gazed back at him in the same wild way.

So little are instinctive guesses the fruit of a legitimate

induction that at this moment as he stood with the door in his hand Troy never once thought of Fanny in connection with what he saw. His first confused idea was that somebody in the house had died.

"Well-what?" said Troy, blankly.

"I must go! I must go," said Bathsheba, to herself more than to him. She came with a dilated eye towards the door, to push past him.

"What's the matter, in God's name? who's dead?" said Troy.

"I cannot say; let me go out. I want air!" she continued.

"But no; stay, I insist!" He seized her hand, and then volition seemed to leave her, and she went off into a state of passivity. He, still holding her, came up the room, and thus, hand in hand, Troy and Bathsheba approached the coffin's side.

The candle was standing on a bureau close by them, and the light slanted down, distinctly enkindling the cold features within. Troy looked in, dropped his wife's hand, - knowledge of it all came over him in a lurid sheen, and he stood still.

So still he remained that he could be imagined to have left in him no motive power whatever. The clashes of feeling in all directions confounded one another, produced a neutrality, and there was motion in none.

"Do you know her?" said Bathsheba, in a small enclosed echo, as from the interior of a cell.

"I do," said Troy.

"Is it she?"

"It is."

He had originally stood perfectly erect. And now, in the well nigh congealed immobility of his frame could be discerned an incipient movement, as in the darkest night may be discerned light after a while. He was gradually sinking forwards. The lines of his features softened, and dismay modulated to illimitable sadness. Bathsheba was regarding him from the other side, still with parted lips and distracted eyes. Capacity for intense feeling is proportionate to the general intensity of the nature, and perhaps in all Fanny's sufferings, much greater, relatively to her strength, there never was a time when she suffered in an absolute sense what Bathsheba suffered now.

This is what Troy did. He sank upon his knees with an indefinable union of remorse and reverence upon his face, and, bending over Fanny Robin, gently kissed her, as one would kiss an infant asleep to avoid awakening it.

At the sight and sound of that, to her, unendurable act, Bathsheba sprang towards him. All the strong feelings which had been scattered over her existence, since she knew what feeling was, seemed gathered together into one pulsation now. The revulsion from her indignant mood a little earlier, when she had meditated upon compromised honor, forestalment, eclipse by another, was violent and entire. All that was forgotten in the simple and still strong attachment of wife to husband. She had sighed for her self-completeness then, and now she cried aloud against the severance of the union she had deplored. She flung her arms round Troy's neck, exclaiming wildly from the deepest deep of her heart:

"Don't-don't kiss them! Oh, Frank, I can't bear it -I can't! I love you better than she did: kiss me too, Frank kiss me! You will, Frank, kiss me too!"

There was something so abnormal and startling in the childlike pain and simplicity of this appeal from a woman of Bathsheba's calibre and independence, that Troy, loosening her tightly clasped arms from his neck, looked at her in bewilderment. It was such an unexpected revelation of all women being alike at heart, even those so different in their accessories as Fanny and this one beside him, that Troy could hardly seem to believe her to be his proud wife Bathsheba. Fanny's own spirit seemed to be animating her frame. But this was the mood of a few instants only. When the momentary surprise had passed, his expression changed to a silencing imperious gaze.

"I will not kiss you," he said, pushing her away.

Had the wife now but gone no further. Yet, perhaps,

under the harrowing circumstances, to speak out was the one wrong act which can be better understood, if not forgiven in her, than the right and politic one. All the feeling she had been betrayed into showing she drew back to herself again by a strenuous effort of self-command.

"What have you to say as your reason?" she asked, her bitter voice being strangely low-quite that of another

woman now.

"I have to say that I have been abad, black-hearted man," he answered.

"And that this woman is your victim; and I not less than she."

"Ah! don't taunt me, madam. This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not tempted me with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her. I never had another thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had; but it is all too late! I deserve to live in torment for this!" He turned to Fanny then. "But never mind, darling," he said; "in the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife."

At these words there arose from Bathsheba's lips a long, low cry of measureless despair and indignation, such a wail of anguish as had never before been heard within those oldinhabited walls. It was the TeréλeσTaι of her union with Troy.

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BATHSHEBA went along the dark road, neither knowing nor caring about the direction or issue of her flight. The first time that she definitely noticed her position was when she reached a gate leading into a thicket overhung by some large oak and beech trees. On looking into the place it occurred to her that she had seen it by daylight on some previous occasion, and that what appeared like an impassable thicket was in reality a brake of fern, now withering fast. She could think of nothing better to do with her palpitating self than to go in here and hide; and entering, she lighted on a spot sheltered from the damp fog by a reclining trunk, where she sank down upon a tangled couch of fronds and stems. She mechanically pulled some armfuls round her to keep off the breezes, and closed her eyes.

Whether she slept or not that night Bathsheba was not clearly aware. But it was with a freshened existence and a cooler brain that, a long time afterwards, she became conscious of some interesting proceedings which were going on in the trees above her head and around.

A coarse-throated chatter was the first sound.
It was a sparrow just waking.

Next: "Chee-weeze-weeze-weeze!" from another retreat.

It was a finch.

Third: "Tink-tink-tink-tink-a-chink!" from the hedge. It was a robin.

"Chuck-chuck-chuck!" overhead.

A squirrel.

Then, from the road, "With my ra-ta-ta, and my rumtum-tum!"

It was a ploughboy. Presently he came opposite, and she believed from his voice that he was one of the boys on her own farm. He was followed by a shambling tramp of heavy feet, and looking through the ferns Bathsheba could just discern in the wan light of daybreak a team of her own horses. They stopped to drink at a pond on the other side of the way. She watched them flouncing into the pool,

drinking, tossing up their heads, drinking again, the water dribbling from their lips in silver threads. There was another flounce, and they came out of the pond, and turned back again towards the farm.

She looked farther around. Day was just dawning, and beside its cool air and colors her heated actions and resolves of the night stood out in lurid contrast. She perceived that in her lap, and clinging to her hair, were red and yellow leaves which had come down from the tree and settled silently upon her during her partial sleep. Bathsheba shook her dress to get rid of them, when multitudes of the same family lying round about her rose and fluttered away in the breeze thus created, "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing."

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There was an opening towards the east, and the glow from the as yet unrisen sun attracted her eyes thither. From her feet, and between the beautiful yellowing ferns with their feathery arms, the ground sloped downwards to a hollow, in which was a species of swamp, dotted with fungi. A morning mist hung over it now, a fulsome yet magnificent silvery veil, full of light from the sun, yet semi-opaque, the hedge behind it being in some measure hidden by its hazy luminousness. Up the sides of this depression grew sheaves of the common rush, and here and there a peculiar species of flag, the blades of which glistened in the emerging sun like scythes. But the general aspect of the swamp was malignant. From its moist and poisonous coat seemed to be exhaled the essences of evil things in the earth, and in the waters under the earth. The fungi grew in all manner of positions from rotting leaves and tree stumps, some exhibiting to her listless gaze their clammy tops, others their oozing gills. Some were marked with great splotches, red as arterial blood - others were saffron yellow, and others tall and attenuated with stems like macaroni. Some were leathery and of richest browns. The hollow seemed a nursery of pestilences small and great, in the immediate neighborhood of comfort and health, and Bathsheba arose with a tremor at the thought of having passed the night on the brink of so dismal a place.

There were now other footsteps to be heard along the road. Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of sight again, and the pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a bag slung over his shoulder, containing his dinner, and a book in his hand. He paused by the gate, and, without looking up, continued murmuring words in tones quite loud enough to reach her ears:

666 O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord, O Lord,' that I know out o' book. Give us, give us, give us, give us, give us,' that I know. Grace that, grace that, grace that, grace that,' - that I know." Other words followed to the same effect. The boy was of the dunce class apparently; the book was a psalter, and this was his way of learning the collect. In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles, and Bathsheba was faintly amused at the boy's method, till he too passed on.

By this time stupor had given place to anxiety, and anxiety began to make room for hunger and thirst. A form now appeared upon the rise on the other side of the swamp, half-bidden by the mist, and came towards Bathsheba. The female for it was a female - approached with her face askance, as if looking earnestly on all sides of her. When she got a little farther round to the left, and drew nearer, Bathsheba could see the new-comer's profile against the sunny sky, and knew the wavy sweep from forehead to chin, with neither angle nor decisive line anywhere about it, to be the familiar contour of Liddy Smallbury.

66

Bathsheba's heart bounded with gratitude in the thought that she was not altogether deserted, and she jumped up. Oh, Liddy!" she said, or attempted to say; but the words had only been framed by her lips; there came no sound. She had lost her voice by exposure to the clogged atmosphere all these hours of night.

66

Oh, ma'am ! I am so glad I have found you," said the girl, as soon as she saw Bathsheba.

"You can't come across," Bathsheba said in a whisper,

which she vainly endeavored to make loud enough to reach Liddy's ears. Liddy, not knowing this, stepped down upon the swamp, saying, as she did so, "It will bear me up, I think."

Bathsheba never forgot that transient little picture of Liddy crossing the swamp to her there in the morning light. Iridescent bubbles of dank subterranean breath rose from the sweating sod beside the waiting-maid's feet as she trod, hissing as they burst and expanded away to join the vapory firmament above. Liddy did not sink, as Bathsheba had anticipated. She landed safely on the other side, and looked up at the beautiful though pale and weary face of her young mistress. "Do

"Poor thing!" said Liddy, with tears in her eyes. hearten yourself up a little, ma'am. However did" "I can't speak above a whisper-my voice is gone for the present," said Bathsheba, hurriedly. "I suppose the damp air from that hollow has taken it away. Liddy, don't question me, mind. Who sent you anybody?" "Nobody. I thought, when I found you were not at home, something cruel had happened. I fancy I heard his voice late last night; and so, knowing something was

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"No; he left just before I came out."

"Is Fanny taken away?"

-

"Not yet. She will soon beat nine o'clock."

"We won't go home at present, then. Suppose we walk about in this wood?"

Liddy, without exactly understanding everything, or anything, in this episode, assented, and they walked together farther among the trees. "But you had better come in, ma'am, and have something to eat. You will die of a chill!" "I shall not come indoors yet perhaps never." "Shall I get you something to eat, and something else to put over your head besides that little shawl?" "If you will, Liddy.”

Liddy vanished, and at the end of twenty minutes returned with a cloak, hat, some slices of bread and butter, a teacup, and some hot tea in a little china jug. "Is Fanny gone?" said Bathsheba.

"No," said her companion, pouring out the tea. Bathsheba wrapped herself up, and ate and drank sparingly. Her voice was then a little clearer, and a trifling color returned to her face. "Now we'll walk about again,' she said.

They wandered about the wood for nearly two hours, Bathsheba replying in monosyllables to Liddy's prattle, for her mind ran on one subject, and one only. She interrupted with,

"I wonder if Fanny is gone by this time?" "I will go and see."

She came back with the information that the men were just taking away the corpse; that Bathsheba had been inquired for; that she had replied to the effect that her mistress was unwell, and could not be seen.

"Then they think I am in my bedroom? " "Yes." Liddy then ventured to add: "You said when I first found you that you might never go home again — you didn't mean it, ma'am?"

"No; I've altered my mind. It is only women with no pride in them who run away from their husbands. There is one position worse than that of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill-usage, and that is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else. I've thought of it all this morning, and I've chosen my course. A runaway wife is an encumbrance to everybody, a burden to herself, and a byword—all of which make up a heap of misery greater than any that comes by staying at home though this may include the trifling items of insult, beating, and starvation. Liddy, if ever you marry, God forbid that you ever should! — you'll find yourself in a fearful situation; but mind this, don't you flinch. Stand your ground, and be cut to pieces. That's what I'm going to do."

"Oh, mistress, don't talk so!" said Liddy, taking her

hand; "but I knew you had too much sense to bide away. May I ask what dreadful thing it is that has happened be tween you and him?

"You may ask; but I may not tell."

In about ten minutes they returned to the house by a circuitous route, entering at the rear. Bathsheba glided up the back stairs to a disused attic, and her companion followed.

and

"Liddy," she said, with a lighter heart, for youth and hope had begun to reassert themselves, "you are to be my confidante for the present somebody must beI choose you. Well, I shall take up my abode here for a while. Will you get a fire lighted, put down a piece of carpet, and help me to make the place comfortable? Afterwards, I want you and Maryann to bring up that little iron bedstead in the small room, and the bed belonging to it, and a table, and some other things. . . . What shall I do to pass the heavy time away!"

"Hemming handkerchiefs is a very good thing," said Liddy.

"Oh, no, no! I hate needle-work "Knitting?"

"And that, too."

I always did."

"You might finish your sampler. Only the carnations and peacocks want filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung beside your aunt's, ma'am."

"Samplers are out of date- horribly countrified. No, Liddy, I'll read. Bring up some books-not new ones. I haven't heart to read anything new."

"Some of your uncle's old ones, ma'am?"

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"Yes. Some of those we stowed away in boxes." A faint gleam of humor passed over her face as she said: "Bring Beaumont and Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy; and the 6 Mourning Bride;' and let me see Night Thoughts,' and the Vanity of Human Wishes.'" "And that story of the black man, who murdered his wife Desdemona? It is a nice dismal one, that would suit you excellent just now."

"Now, Lidd, you've been ooking into my books, without telling me; and I said you were not to! How do you know it would suit me? It wouldn't suit me at all.” "But if the others do "

"No, they don't; and I won't read dismal books. Why should I read dismal books, indeed? Bring me Love in a Village,' and the Maid of the Mill,' and Doctor Syntax,' and some volumes of the Spectator.'

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All that day Bathsheba and Liddy lived in the attic in a state of barricade; a precaution which proved to be needless as against Troy, for he did not appear in the neighborhood, or trouble them at all. Bathsheba sat at the window till sunset, sometimes attempting to read, at other times watching every movement outside without much purpose, and listening without much interest to every sound. The sun went down almost blood-red that night, and a livid cloud received its rays in the east. Up against this dark background the west front of the church-tower-the only part of the edifice visible from the farm-house windows- rose distinct and lustrous, the vane upon the pinnacle bristling with rays. Here, about six o'clock, the young men of the village gathered, as was their custom, for a game of fives. The tower had been consecrated to this ancient diversion from time immemorial, the western façade conveniently forming the boundary of the churchyard at that end, where the ground was trodden hard and bare as a pavement by the players. She could see the balls flying upwards, almost to the belfry window, and the brown and black heads of the young lads darting about right and left, their white shirt-sleeves gleaming in the sun; whilst occasionally a shout and a peal of hearty laughter varied the stillness of the evening air. They continued playing for a quarter of an hour or so, when the game concluded abruptly, and the players leapt over the wall and vanished round to the north side behind a yew-tree, which was also half behind a beech, now spreading in one mass of golden foliage, on which the branches traced black

lines.

"Why did the fives-players finish their game so sud

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AN American astronomer of great eminence has recently suggested a very startling theory respecting the sun, presenting that orb to our contemplation as, literally, a mere bubble, though a splendid one and of stupendous dimen sions. If this theory were only advanced as a speculation, a crude notion as to what might be, we should not care to discuss it in these pages. But the hypothesis has been based on a very careful discussion of facts, and affords, on the whole, a readier explanation of certain observed appearances than any other which has been suggested. We propose, therefore, briefly to describe the phenomena on which the theory is founded, and then to sketch the theory itself, and some of the most remarkable consequences which must be accepted along with it, should it be admitted.

But first, we shall present some of the ideas which very eminent astronomers have entertained respecting the condition of that glowing surface which astronomers call the Solar Photosphere. It will be seen that the bubble theory of the sun has been far surpassed in audacity by former speculations respecting the great central luminary of our system.

ure.

Sir. W. Herschel, during the whole course of his observations of the sun, proceeded on the assumption, which perhaps appears a natural one, that the sun has a solid globe around which lies an atmosphere of a complex natWe shall presently describe his strange ideas respecting the nature of the solar globe; but it will be well to quote first his views as to the atmosphere of the sun, and the analogies he recognized between the sun's atmosphere and the earth's. "The earth," he said, in a passage explaining his view as to the solar spots, "is surrounded by an atmosphere composed of various elastic fluids. The sun also has its atmosphere, and if some of the fluids which enter into its composition should be of a shining brilliancy, while others are nearly transparent, any temporary cause which may remove the lucid fluid will permit us to see the body of the sun through the transparent ones. If an observer were placed on the moon he would see the solid body of our earth only in those places where the transpar ent fluids of the atmosphere would permit him. In others the opaque vapors would reflect the light of the sun without permitting his view to penetrate to the surface of our globe. He would probably also find that our planet had occasionally some shining fluids in its atmosphere, as, not unlikely, some of our northern lights might attract his notice, if they happened in the unenlightened part of the earth, and were seen by him in his long dark night." He goes on to show how the various phenomena of sun spots can be explained by the theory that they are due to the occasional and temporary removal of the shining atmosphere from parts of the sun. "In the year 1791," he proceeds, "I examined a large spot in the sun, and found it evidently depressed below the level of the surface; about the third part was a broad margin or plain of considerable extent, less bright than the sun, and also lower than its surface. This plain seemed to rise, with shelving sides, up to the place where it joined the level of the surface. How very ill would this agree with the old ideas of solid bodies bobbing up and down in a fiery liquid, with the smoke of volcanoes, or scum upon an ocean; and how easily is it explained upon our foregoing theory. The removal of the shining atmosphere, which permits us to see the sun, must naturally be attended with a gradual diminution on its borders. An instance of a similar kind we have daily before

us, when, through an opening of a cloud, we see the sky, which generally is attended by a surrounding haziness of some short extent."

He was led by considerations such as these, to conceive that the real body of the sun is neither illuminated nor heated to any remarkable degree, and may, in fact, be habitable. "The sun, viewed in this light," he said, "appears to be nothing else than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the first, or, in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our system, all others being truly secondary to it. Its similarity to the other globes of the solar system with regard to its solidity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface; the rotation upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, lead us on to suppose that it is most probably also inhabited, like the rest of the planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar circumstances of that vast globe. Whatever fanciful poets may say in making the sun the abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists devise in pointing it out as a fit place for the punishment of the wicked, it does not appear that they had any other foundations than mere opinion and vague surmise; but now I think myself authorized, upon astronomical principles, to propose the sun as an inhabitable world, and am persuaded that my observations, and the conclusions I have drawn from them, are sufficient to answer every objection that may be made against it."

Before passing from the views of the greatest observational astronomer that ever lived, we shall venture to quote yet another passage, to show on what feeble arguments he was content to rely, when this favorite theory of his was in question. He pictures to himself and his readers how the inhabitants of our moon, and of the moons circling around Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, considering the offices discharged by those planets, might be led to regard their primaries as "mere attractive centres, to direct their revolutions, and to supply them with reflected light in the absence of direct illumination." "Ought we not," he proceeds seriously to demand, "to condemn their ignorance as proceeding from want of attention and proper reflection? It is very true that the earth and those other planets that have satellites about them perform all the offices that have been named for the inhabitants of these little globes; but to us who live upon one of these planets, their reasonings cannot but appear very defective, when we see what a magnificent dwelling-place the earth affords to numberless intelligent beings. These considerations ought to make the inhabitants of the planets wiser than we have supposed those of their satellites to be. We surely ought not, like them, to say, 'The sun' (that immense globe, whose body would much more than fill the whole orbit of the moon) 'is merely an attractive centre to us.' From experience we can affirm that the performance of the most salutary offices to inferior planets is not inconsistent with the dignity of superior purposes; and in consequence of such analogical reasonings, assisted by telescopic views, which plainly favor the same opinion, we need not hesitate to admit that the sun is richly stored with inhabitants."

Sir John Herschel went far beyond his father, however, in dealing with the question of the sun's habitability. He adopted a totally different view. Admitting the possible coolness of the real solar globe, and the consequent possibility of the existence of ordinary forms of life upon it, he nevertheless preferred to regard the true inhabitants of the sun, not simply as capable of bearing an intense heat and light, but as themselves emitting the chief part of the light and heat which we receive from the sun! This may appear altogether incredible, and, in fact, the terms in which Sir John Herschel expressed the opinion were not quite so definite as those which we have just used. Nevertheless, we believe our readers, after considering the passages we shall quote from Sir John Herschel's statement of his views, will perceive that there can be very little doubt as to his real opinion.

The surface of the sun, when examined with very powerful telescopes, shows a multitude of bright granulations, which, according to Nasmyth, are due to the existence of very bright objects shaped like willow leaves. We do not

here discuss the question whether these solar willow leaves have a real existence or not. Suffice it that the evidence on the subject appeared to Sir John Herschel to be demonstrative. "The leaves or scales," he said, "are not arranged in any order (as those of a butterfly's wings are), but lie crossing in all directions like what are called spills in the game of spillikins; except at the borders of a spot, where they point, for the most part, inwards, towards the middle of the spot, presenting much the sort of appearance that the small leaves of some water-plants or sea-weeds do at the edge of a deep hole of clear water. The exceedingly definite shape of these objects; their exact similarity one to another; and the way in which they lie athwart and across each other (except where they form a sort of bridge across a spot, in which case they seem to effect a common direction, that, namely, of the bridge itself), all these characters seem quite repugnant to the notion of their being of a vaporous, a cloudy, or a fluid nature. Nothing remains but to consider them as separate and independent sheets, flakes, or scales, having some sort of solidity. And these flakes, be they what they may, and whatever may be said of the dashing of meteoric stones into the sun's atmosphere, etc., are evidently the immediate sources of the solar light and heat, by whatever mechanism or whatever processes they may be enabled to develop, and as it were elaborate, these elements from the bosom of the non-luminous fluid in which they appear to float. Looked at in this point of view. we cannot refuse to regard them as organisms of some peculiar and amazing kind; and though it may appear too daring to speak of such organizations as partaking of the nature of life, yet we do know that vital action is competent to develop at once heat and light and electricity. These wonderful objects have been seen by others than Mr. Nasmyth, so that there is no room to doubt of their reality. To be seen at all, however, even with the highest magnifying powers our telescopes will bear when applied to the sun, they can hardly be less than a thousand miles in length, and two or three hundred in breadth."

It is not a little singular that the two Herschels, among the ablest reasoners on observed facts, and both highly distinguished for observational skill, should have advanced theories so fanciful as the two we have quoted above. On no other evidence than the fact that the sun, like the earth, is a rotating globe, the elder Herschel was prepared, we will not say to overlook the intense light and heat of the solar orb, but to invent a protecting envelope, of a nature utterly unlike that of any material known to men of science, whereby the solar inhabitants might be protected from the sun's fiery rays; while the younger Herschel, accepting confidently the "solar willow leaves" (much doubted by other astronomers). was prepared to regard them as organisms whose vitality supplies the light and heat emitted by the sun! When theories so startling have been maintained by the acknowledged chiefs of modern astronomy, we may be content to regard without much surprise the theory, strange though it seems at a first view, that the sun is a gigantic bubble.

But we believe that we shall be able to show that the bubble theory has very strong evidence in its favor. Let us first consider the facts which suggested it.

Very soon after1 Dr. Huggins had devised a method by which the colored prominences of the sun could be studied without the aid of a total solar eclipse, astronomers discovered that in many cases the red prominences result from veritable solar eruptions. Some prominences, indeed, are obviously in a condition of comparative quiescence, floating (as it were) like clouds in the solar atmosphere, and either remaining unchanged for hours or even for days, or else undergoing only very gradual processes of alteration. But there are others which are manifestly true jets. It is not merely that the shape of these prominences indicates unmistakably that the matter composing them has been ejected with great violence from the sun's interior, but several have been watched during the actual process of ejection. They

1 The reference above is to the first detailed statement of the method by which the prominences were to be seen without eclipse, such statement bearing date February, 1868, or six months before the method was first successfully applied.

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