Nevertheless, the idea gave him great delight. He says:--"The intense pleasure I have received from this discovery can never be told in words. I regretted no more the time wasted; I tired of no labour; I shunned no toil of reckoning, days and nights spent in calculation, until I could see whether my hypothesis would agree with the orbits of Copernicus, or whether my joy was to vanish into air." He then went on to speculate as to the cause of the planets' motion. The old idea was that they were carried round by angels or celestial intelligences. Kepler tried to establish some propelling force emanating from the sun, like the spokes of a windmill. This first book of his brought him into notice, and served as an introduction to Tycho and to Galileo. Tycho Brahé was at this time at Prague under the patronage of the Emperor Rudolph; and as he was known to have by far the best planetary observations of any man living, Kepler wrote to him to know if he might come and examine them so as to perfect his theory. Tycho immediately replied, "Come, not as a stranger, but as a very welcome friend; come and share in my observations with such instruments as I have with me, and as a dearly beloved associate." After this visit, Tycho wrote again, offering him the post of mathematical assistant, which after hesitation was accepted. Part of the hesitation Kepler expresses by saying that "for observations his sight was dull, and for mechanical operations his hand was awkward. He suffered much from weak eyes, and dare not expose himself to night air." In all this he was, of course, the antipodes of Tycho, but in mathematical skill he was greatly his superior. On his way to Prague he was seized with one of his periodical illnesses, and all his means were exhausted by the time he could set forward again, so that he had to apply for help to Tycho. It is clear, indeed, that for some time now he subsisted entirely on the bounty of Tycho, and he expresses himself most deeply grateful for all the kindness he received from that noble and distinguished man, the head of the scientific world at that date. To illustrate Tycho's kindness and generosity, I must read you a letter written to him by Kepler. It seems that Kepler, on one of his absences from Prague, driven half mad with poverty and trouble, fell foul of Tycho, whom he thought to be behaving badly in money matters to him and his family, and wrote him a violent letter full of reproaches and insults. Tycho's secretary replied quietly enough, pointing out the groundlessness and ingratitude of the accusation. Kepler repents instantly, and replies:--