Yet, unlike our childhood’s toy, reasoning can conjure up beside the present picture far vistas of what preceded it and of what is yet to come. Hidden from thought only by the distraction of the day, as the universe to sight lies hid by the day’s overpowering glare, both come out on its withdrawal till we wonder we never gazed before. Our own surroundings shut out the glories that lie beyond. Our veil of atmosphere cloaks them from our view. But wait, as an astronomer, till the Sun sinks behind the hills and his gorgeous gold of parting fades to amber amid the tender tapestry of trees. The very air takes on a meaning which the flood of day had swamped. Seen itself, no longer imperfectly seen through, it wakes to semi-sentient existence, a spirit come to life aloft to shield us from the too immediate vacancy of space. The perfumes of the soil, the trees, the flowers, steal out to it, as the twilight glow itself exhales to heaven. In the hushed quiet of the gloaming Earth holds her breath, prescient of a revelation to come. Then as the half-light deepens, the universe appears. One by one the company of heaven stand forth to human sight. Venus first in all her glory brightens amid the dying splendor of the west, growing in lustre as her setting fades. From mid-heaven the Moon lets fall a sheen of silvery light, the ghostly mantle of her ghostlike self, over the silent Earth. Eastward Jupiter, like some great lantern of the system’s central sweep, swings upward from the twilight bow to take possession of the night. Beyond lies Saturn, or Uranus perchance dim with distance, measuring still greater span. All in order in their several place the noble cortège of the Sun is exposed to view, seen now by the courtesy of his withdrawal, backgrounded against the immensity of space. Great worlds, these separate attendants, and yet as nothings in the void where stare the silent stars, huge suns themselves with retinues unseen, so vast the distances ’twixt us and them. No less a revelation awaits the opening of the shutters of the mind. If night discloses glimpses of the great beyond, knowledge invests it with a meaning unfolding and extending as acquaintance grows. Sight is human; insight seems divine. To know those points of light for other worlds themselves, worlds the telescope approaches as the years advance, while study reconstructs their past and visions forth their future, is to be made free of the heritage of heaven. Time opens to us as space expands. We stand upon the Earth, but in the sky, a vital portion not only of our globe, but of all of which it, too, forms part. To feel it is to enter upon another life; and if to realization of its beauty, its grandeur, and its sublimity of thought these chapters of its history have proved in any wise the portal, they have not been penned in vain. NOTES 1 METEOR ORBITS