I was in London, all day yesterday, where the weather was as dismal as is its wont; and, returning here by the evening train, saw, with astonishment, the stars extricate themselves from the fog, and the moon glow for a little while in her setting, over the southern Berkshire hills, as I breathed on the platform at the Reading station;--(for there were six people in the carriage, and they had shut both the windows). When I got to Oxford, the sky was entirely clear; the Great Bear was near the ground under the pole, and the Charioteer high over-head, the principal star of him as bright as a gas-lamp. It is a curious default in the stars, to my mind, that there is a Charioteer among them without a chariot; and a Waggon with no waggoner; nor any waggon, for that matter, except the Bear's stomach; but I have always wanted to know the history of the absent Charles, who must have stopped, I suppose to drink, while his cart went on, and so never got to be stellified himself. I wish I knew; but I can tell you less about him than even about Theseus. The Charioteer's story is pretty, however:--he gave his life for a kiss, and did not get it; got made into stars instead. It would be a dainty tale to tell you under the mistletoe: perhaps I may have time next year: to-day it is of the stars of Ariadne's crown I want to speak. But that giving one's life for a kiss, and not getting it, is indeed a general abstract of the Greek notion of heroism, and its reward; and, by the way, does it not seem to you a grave defect in the stars, at Christmas time, that all their stories are Greek--not one Christian? In all the east, and all the west, there is not a space of heaven with a Christian story in it; the star of the Wise men having risen but once, and set, it seems, for ever; and the stars of Foolish men--innumerable, but unintelligible, forming, I suppose, all across the sky that broad way of Asses' milk; while a few Greek heroes and hunters, a monster or two, and some crustaceous animals, occupy, here in the north, our heaven's compass, down to the very margin of the illuminated book. A sky quite good enough for us, nevertheless, for all the use we make of it, either by night or day--or any hope we have of getting into it--or any inclination we have, while still out of it, to "take stars for money."