Regulus | _reg´u-lus_ | Lion | The end of the handle | | | of the Sickle ----------------+---------------+-------------+-------------------------- The five stars marked * belong to the Southern hemisphere, and we can never see them unless we travel far south. Last winter I went to Florida and saw Canopus, but to see the Southern Cross you should cross the Tropic of Cancer. HOW TO LEARN MORE All I can hope to do in this book is to get you enthusiastic about astronomy. I don't mean "gushy." Look in the dictionary and you will find that the enthusiast is not the faddist. He is the one who sticks to a subject for a lifetime. Nor do I care a rap whether you become an astronomer--or even buy a telescope. There will be always astronomers coming on, but there are too few people who know and love even a few of the stars. I want you to make popular astronomy a life-long hobby. Perhaps you may have to drop it for ten or fifteen years. Never mind, you will take up the study again. I can't expect you to read a book on stars if you are fighting to make a living or support a family, unless it really rests you to read about the stars. It does rest me. When things go wrong at the office or at home, I can generally find rest and comfort from music. And if the sky is clear, I can look at the stars, and my cares suddenly seem small and drop away. Let me tell you why and how you can get the very best the stars have to teach you, without mathematics or telescope. Follow this programme and you need never be afraid of hard work, or of exhausting the pleasures of the subject. Go to your public library and get one of the books I recommend in this chapter, and read whatever interests you. I don't care whether you take up planets before comets or comets before planets, but whatever you do do it well. Soak the interesting facts right in. Nail them down. See everything the book talks about. Make notes of things to watch for. Get a little blank book and write down the date you first saw each thing of interest. Write down the names of the constellations you love most. Before you lay down any star book you are reading, jot down the most wonderful and inspiring thing you have read--even if you have only time to write a single word that may recall it all to you. Treasure that little note book as long as you live. Every year it will get more precious to you. Now for the books: 1. _Martin._ _The Friendly Stars._ Harper & Brothers, New York, 1907. This book teaches you first the twenty brightest stars and then the constellations. I cannot say that this, or any other, is the "best book," but it has helped me most, and I suppose it is only natural that we should love best the first book that introduces us to a delightful subject. 2. _Serviss._ _Astronomy with the Naked Eye._ Harper & Brothers, New York, 1908.