I remember the terrifying predictions made by the honest and credulous astronomers, who must have been themselves hypnotized, or they could not have hypnotized the rest of us, in 1909. Wills were made. Human life might be swept from this planet. In quasi-existence, which is essentially Hibernian, that would be no reason why wills should not be made. The less excitable of us did expect at least some pretty good fireworks. I have to admit that it is said that, in New York, a light was seen in the sky. It was about as terrifying as the scratch of a match on the seat of some breeches half a mile away. It was not on time. Though I have heard that a faint nebulosity, which I did not see, myself, though I looked when I was told to look, was seen in the sky, it appeared several days after the time predicted. A hypnotized host of imbeciles of us: told to look up at the sky: we did--like a lot of pointers hypnotized by a partridge. The effect: Almost everybody now swears that he saw Halley's comet, and that it was a glorious spectacle. An interesting circumstance here is that seemingly we are trying to discredit astronomers because astronomers oppose us--that's not my impression. We shall be in the Brahmin caste of the hell of the Baptists. Almost all our data, in some regiments of this procession, are observations by astronomers, few of them mere amateur astronomers. It is the System that opposes us. It is the System that is suppressing astronomers. I think we pity them in their captivity. Ours is not malice--in a positive sense. It's chivalry--somewhat. Unhappy astronomers looking out from high towers in which they are imprisoned--we appear upon the horizon. But, as I have said, our data do not relate to some especial other world. I mean very much what a savage upon an ocean island might vaguely think of in his speculations--not upon some other land, but complexes of continents and their phenomena: cities, factories in cities, means of communication-- Now all the other savages would know of a few vessels sailing in their regular routes, passing this island in regularized periodicities. The tendency in these minds would be expression of the universal tendency toward positivism--or Completeness--or conviction that these few regularized vessels constituted all. Now I think of some especial savage who suspects otherwise--because he's very backward and unimaginative and insensible to the beautiful ideals of the others: not piously occupied, like the others, in bowing before impressive-looking sticks of wood; dishonestly taking time for his speculations, while the others are patriotically witch-finding. So the other higher and nobler savages know about the few regularized vessels: know when to expect them; have their periodicities all worked out; just about when vessels will pass, or eclipse each other--explaining that all vagaries were due to atmospheric conditions. They'd come out strong in explaining.