hen Humboldt landed at Bordeaux in August, in Eighteen Hundred Four, after his five-year journey, he immediately set out to visit his brother, who was then German Ambassador at Rome. We can imagine that it was a most joyous meeting.

Of it William said: "I could not recognize him for my tears—but beside this he seemed to have grown in stature and was as brown as a Malay. Was he really my brother? Ah, the hand was the hand of Esau, but when he spoke, it was the same kind, gentle, loving voice—the voice of my brother."

A few weeks at Rome and Alexander grew restless for work. He had made great plans about publishing the record of his travels. This work was to outstrip anything in bookmaking the world had ever seen, dealing with similar subjects. The writing was done on shipboard, by campfires, and in forest and jungle, but now it had all to be gone over and revised and much of it translated into French, for the original notes were sometimes in English and sometimes in German. Only in Paris could the work of bookmaking be done that would fill Humboldt's ideals. In Paris were printers, engravers, artists, binders—Paris was then the artistic center of the world, as it is today.

The results of this first great scientific voyage of discovery were written out in a work of seventeen volumes.

It was entitled, "The Travels of Humboldt and Bonpland in the Interior of America." Humboldt wrote the book, but wanted his friend to have half the credit. This superb set of books, containing many engravings, was issued under Humboldt's supervision and almost entirely at his own expense. It was divided into five general parts: Zoology and Comparative Anatomy; Geography and the Distribution of Plants; Political Essays and Description of Peoples and Institutions in the Kingdom of New Spain; Astronomy and Magnetism; Equinoctial Vegetation. It took two years to issue the first volume, but the others then came along more rapidly, yet it was ten years before the last book of the set was published. The total expense of issuing this set of books was more than a million francs, or, to be exact, two hundred twenty-six thousand dollars.

The cost of a set of these books to subscribers was two thousand five hundred fifty dollars, although there were a few sets containing hand-colored plates and original drawings that were valued at twenty thousand dollars. One such set can now be seen at the British Museum. In all, only three hundred sets of these books were issued.

One set at least came to North America, for it was presented to Thomas Jefferson, and, if I am not mistaken, is now in the Congressional Library at Washington.

This American Expedition forever fixed Alexander von Humboldt's place in history, but after it was completed and the record written out, he had still more than half a century to live.

t a time when few men could afford the luxury, Alexander von Humboldt was an atheist. Fortunately he had sufficient fortune to place him beyond reach of the bread-and-butter problem, and all of his books were written in the language of the esoteric. He did not serve as an iconoclast for the common people—his name was never on the tongue of rumor—very few, indeed, knew of his existence. His books were issued in deluxe, limited editions, and were for public libraries, the shelves of nobility or rich collectors.

Humboldt was judicial in all of his statements, approaching every question as if nothing were known about it. He built strong, and was preparing the way, such as throwing up ramparts and storing ammunition for the first decisive battle that was to take place between Theology and Science.

In his day Theology was supreme, the practical dictator of human liberties. But a World's Congress of Freethinkers has recently been held in Rome.

There were present more than three thousand delegates, representing every civilized country on the globe. The deliberations of the Congress were held in a hall supplied by the Italian Government, and all courtesies and privileges were tendered the delegates. The only protest came from the Pope, who turned Protestant and in all the Catholic churches in Rome ordered special services, to partially mitigate the blot upon the fair record of the "Holy City." Forty years ago armed men would have routed this Congress by force, and a hundred years ago the bare thought of such a meeting would have placed a person who might have suggested it in imminent peril.

Humboldt prophesied that the world would not forever be ruled by religious superstition—that science must surely win. But he did not expect that the change would come as quickly as it has; neither did he anticipate the fact that the orthodox religion would admit all the facts of science and still flourish. The number of Church communicants now is larger than it was in the time of Humboldt. The Church is a department-store that puts in the particular goods that the people ask for.

Freethinkers do not leave the Church; the Church is built on a Goodyear patent, and its lines expand when Freethinkers get numerous, so as to include them.

The Church would rather countenance vice, as it has in the past, than disband. In New York City we now have the spectacle of the Church operating a saloon and selling strong drink. In all country towns, religion, failing in being attractive, has, to keep churches alive, resorted to raffles, lotteries, concerts, chicken-pie socials, and lectures and exhortations by strange men in curious and unique garb, and singers of reputation.

The Church, being a part of society, evolves as society evolves. Christianity is a totally different thing now from what it was in Humboldt's time; it was a different thing in Humboldt's time from what it was a hundred years before.

Behold the spectacle of a thousand highly educated and gentle men, from all over the world, decorating with garlands the statue of Bruno in Rome, on the site where Churchmen piled high the fagots and burned his living body! I foretell that when the next World's Congress of Freethinkers occurs in Rome, the Pope will welcome the delegates, and their deliberations will occur by invitation in the wide basilica of Saint Peter's. The world moves, and the Pope and all the rest of us move with it.

When a meeting was recently called in Jersey City to welcome Turner, the so-called anarchist, the Mayor forbade the meeting and then placed a cordon of policemen around the intended meeting-place. But, lo, in their extremity the "anarchists" were invited by a clergyman to come and use his church and he led the way to the sacred edifice, warning the police to neither follow nor enter. As we become better we meet better preachers.

Humboldt could see no rift through the clouds outside of the death of the Church and the disbanding of her so-called sacred institutions. We now perceive that very rarely are religious opinions consciously abandoned; they change, are modified and later evolve into something else. Churches are now largely social clubs. In America this is true both of Catholic and of Protestant. Most all denominations are interested in social betterment, because the trend of human thought is in that direction.

The Church is being swept along upon the tide of time. In a few instances churches have already evolved practical industrial betterments, which are conducted directly under the supervision of the church and in its edifice. There are hundreds of Kindergartens now being carried on in church buildings that a few years ago were idle and vacant all the week. Others have sewing-circles and boys' clubs, and these have metamorphosed in some instances into Manual-Training Schools where girls are taught Domestic Science and boys are given instruction in the Handicrafts. I know a church that derives its support from the sale of useful things that are made by its members and workers under the supervision of its pastor, who is a master in handicraft. So this pretty nearly points the ideal—a church that has evolved into an ethical and industrial college, where the pastor is not paid for preaching, but for doing.

Charles Bradlaugh once said:

"A paid priesthood blocks evolution. These men are really educated to uphold and defend the institution. They can do nothing else. Most of them have families dependent upon them—do you wonder that it is a fight to the death? It is not truth that the clergy struggles for—they may think it is—but the grim fact remains, it is a fight for material existence."

We all confuse our interests with the eternal verities—the thing that pays us we consider righteous, or at least justifiable. This is the most natural thing in the world. An artist who painted very bad pictures once took one of his canvases to Whistler for criticism.

Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace that spoke volumes. "But a man must live some way!" pleaded the poor fellow in his extremity.

"I do not see the necessity," was the weary reply.

Preachers must live; their education and environment have unfitted them for useful effort; but they are a part of the great, seething struggle for existence. And so we have their piteous and plaintive plea for the obsolete and the outworn. Disraeli once in an incautious moment exclaimed: "If we do away with the Established Church, what is to become of the fourteen million prepared and pickled sermons? Think for a moment of the infinite labor of writing new sermons, all based upon a different point of view—let us then be reasonable and not subject a profession that is overworked to the humiliation of destroying the bulk of its assets."

Science deals directly with the maintenance of human life and the bettering of every condition of existence through a wider, wiser and saner use of the world. Civilization is the working out and comprehending and proving how to live in the best way. Theology prepares men to die; science fits them to live.

Science deals with your welfare in this world; theology in another. Theology has not yet proved that there is another world—its claims are not even based upon hearsay. It is a matter of belief and assumption.

Science, too, assumes, and its assumption is this: The best preparation for a life to come is to live here and now as if there were no life to come.

Your belief will not fix your place in another world—what you are, may. The individual who gets most out of this life is fitting himself to get most out of another if there is one.

And this brings us up to that paragraph in the "Cosmos" where Humboldt says: "I perceive a period when the true priesthood will not be paid to defend a fixed system of so-called crystallized truth. But I believe the time will come when that man will be most revered who bestows most benefits here and now. The clergy of Christendom have stood as leaders of thought, but to hold this proud position they must abandon the intangible and devote themselves to this world and the people who are alive."

ost of Humboldt's time during his middle life was spent at Paris, where he was busily engaged in the herculean task of issuing his splendid books. He varied his work, however, so that several hours daily were devoted to study and scientific research; and from time to time he made journeys over Europe and Asia.

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven a personal request came from the King of Prussia that Humboldt should thereafter make Berlin his home. He was too big a man for Germany to lose.

He acceded to the King's request, moved to Berlin and was spoken of as "The First Citizen," although he would not consent to hold office, nor would he accept a title.

In vexed questions of diplomacy he was often consulted by the King and his Cabinet, and in a great many ways he furthered the interests of education and civilization by his judicial and timely advice.

He was always a student, always an investigator, always a tireless worker. He lived simply and quietly—keeping out of society and away from crowds, except on the rare occasions when necessity seemed to demand it.

The quality of the man was well mirrored in those magnificent books—all that he did was on the scale of grandeur.

His books were too high in price for the average reader, but on request of the King he consented to give a course of five, free, popular lectures for the people.

No one foresaw the result of these addresses. The course was so successful that it extended itself into sixty-one lectures, and covered a period of more than ten years' time. No admittance was charged, free tickets being given out to applicants. Very soon after the first lecture, a traffic sprang up in these free tickets, carried on by our Semitic friends, and the tickets soared to as high as three dollars each. Then the strong hand of the Government stepped in: the tickets were canceled, and the public was admitted to the lectures without ceremony. Boxes, however, were set apart for royalty and foreign visitors, some of whom came from England, Belgium, Switzerland and France. The size of these audiences was limited simply by the capacity of the auditorium, the attendance at first being about a thousand; later, a larger hall was secured and the attendance ran as high as four thousand persons at each address.

The subjects were as follows: three lectures on the History of Science; two on reasons why we should study Science; four on the Crust of the Earth, and the nature of Volcanoes and Earthquakes; two on the form of Earth's Surface and the elevation of the Continents; five on Physical Geography; five on the nature of Heat and Magnetism; sixteen on Astronomy; two on Mountains and how they are formed; three on the Nature of the Sea; three on the Distribution of Matter; ten on the Atmosphere as an Elastic Fluid; three on the Geography of Animals; three on Races of Men.

Every good thing begins as something else, and what was intended for the common people became scientific lectures for educated people. "The man who was most benefited by these lectures was myself," said Humboldt.

Men grow by doing things. Lectures are for the lecturer.

Humboldt found out more things in giving these lectures than he knew before—he discovered himself. And long before they were completed he knew that his best work was embodied right here—in doing for others he had done for himself.

In attempting to reveal the Universe or "Cosmos," he revealed most of his own comprehensive intelligence. That many of his conclusions have since been abandoned by the scientific world does not prove such ideas valueless—they helped and are helping men to find the truth.

These sixty-one "popular" and free lectures make up that stupendous work now known to us as "Humboldt's Cosmos."

ays Robert Ingersoll in his tribute to Alexander von Humboldt:

"His life was pure, his aims were lofty, his learning varied and profound, and his achievements vast.

"We honor him because he has ennobled our race, because he has contributed as much as any man, living or dead, to the real prosperity of the world. We honor him because he has honored us—because he has labored for others—because he was the most learned man of the most learned nation of his time—because he left a legacy of glory to every human being. For these reasons he is honored throughout the world.

"Millions are doing homage to his genius at this moment, and millions are pronouncing his name with reverence and recounting what he accomplished.

"We associate the name of Humboldt with oceans, continents, mountains, volcanoes—with towering palms—the snow-lipped craters of the Andes—the wide deserts—with primeval forests and European capitals—with wilderness and universities—with savages and savants—with the lonely rivers of unpeopled wastes—with peaks, pampas, steppes, cliffs and crags—with the progress of the world—with every science known to man and with every star glittering in the immensity of space. Humboldt adopted none of the soul-shrinking creeds of his day; he wasted none of his time in the inanities, stupidities and contradictions of theological metaphysics; he did not endeavor to harmonize the astronomy and geology of a barbarous people with the science of the Nineteenth Century.

"Never, for one moment, did he abandon the sublime standard of truth: he investigated, he studied, he thought, he separated the gold from the dross in the crucible of his brain. He was never found on his knees before the altar of superstition. He stood erect by the tranquil column of Reason. He was an admirer, a lover, an adorer of Nature, and at the age of ninety, bowed by the weight of nearly a century, covered with the insignia of honor, loved by a nation, respected by a world, with kings for his servants, he laid his weary head upon her bosom—upon the bosom of the Universal Mother—and with her loving arms about him, sank into that slumber which we call Death.

"History added another name to the starry scroll of the immortals.

"The world is his monument; upon the eternal granite of her hills he inscribed his name, and there, upon everlasting stone, his genius wrote this, the sublimest of truths: The universe is governed by law."

WILLIAM HERSCHEL

WILLIAM HERSCHEL

illiam Herschell, born Seventeen Hundred Thirty-eight, in the city of Hanover, was the fourth child in a family of ten. Big families, I am told, usually live in little houses, while little families live in big houses. The Herschels were no exception to the rule.

Isaac Herschel, known to the world as being the father of his son, was a poor man, depending for support upon his meager salary as bandmaster to a regiment of the Hanoverian Guards.

At the garrison school, taught by a retired captain, William was the star scholar. In mathematics he propounded problems that made the worthy captain pooh-pooh and change the subject.

At fourteen, he was playing a hautboy in his father's band and practising on the violin at spare times.

For music he had a veritable passion, and to have a passion for a thing means that you excel in it—excellence is a matter of intensity. One of the players in the band was a Frenchman, and William made an arrangement to give the "parlez vous" lessons on the violin as payment for lessons in French.

This whole brood of Herschel children was musical, and very early in life the young Herschels became self-supporting as singers and players. "It is the only thing they can do," their father said. But his loins were wiser than his head.

In Seventeen Hundred Fifty-five William accompanied his father's band to England, where they went to take part in a demonstration in honor of a Hanoverian, one George the Third, who later was to play a necessary part in a symphony that was to edify the American Colonies. America owes much to George the Third.

Young Herschel had already learned to speak English, just as he had learned French. In England he spent all the money he had for three volumes of "Locke on the Human Understanding."

These books were to remain his lifelong possession and to be passed on, well-thumbed, to his son more than half a century later.

At the time of the breaking out of the Seven Years' War, William Herschel was nineteen. His regiment had been ordered to march in a week. Here was a pivotal point—should he go and fight for the glory of Prussia?

Not he—by the connivance of his mother and sisters, he was secreted on a trading-sloop bound for England. This is what is called desertion; and just how the young man evaded the penalties, since the King of England was also Elector of Hanover, I do not know, but the House of Hanover made no effort toward punishment of the culprit, even when the facts were known.

Musicians of quality were, perhaps, needed in England; and as sheep-stealing is looked upon lightly by priests who love mutton, so do kings forgive infractions if they need the man.

When William Herschel landed at Dover he had in his pocket a single crownpiece, and his luggage consisted of the clothes he wore, and a violin. The violin secured him board and lodgings along the road as he walked to London, just as Oliver Goldsmith paid his way with a similar legal tender.

In London, Herschel's musical skill quickly got him an engagement at one of the theaters. In a few months we hear of his playing solos at Brabandt's aristocratic concerts. Little journeys into "the provinces" were taken by the orchestra to which Herschel belonged. Among other places visited was Bath, and here the troupe was booked for a two-weeks' engagement. At this time Bath was run wide open.

Bath was a rendezvous for the gouty dignitaries of Church and State who had grown swag through sloth and much travel by the gorge route. There were ministers of state, soldiers, admirals-of-the-sea, promoters, preachers, philosophers, players, poets, polite gamblers and buffoons.

They idled, fiddled, danced, gabbled, gadded and gossiped. The "School for Scandal" was written on the spot, with models drawn from life. It wasn't a play—it was a cross-section of Bath Society.

Bath was a clearing-house for the wit, learning and folly of all England—the combined Hot Springs, Coney Island, Saratoga and Old Point Comfort of the Kingdom. The most costly church of its size in America is at Saint Augustine, Florida. The repentant ones patronize it in Lent; the rest of the year it is closed.

At Bath there was the Octagon Chapel, which had the best pipe-organ in England. Herschel played the organ: where he learned how nobody seemed to know—he himself did not know. But playing musical instruments is a little like learning a new language.

A man who speaks three languages can take a day off and learn a fourth almost any time. Somebody has said that there is really only one language, and most of us have only a dialect. Acquire three languages and you perceive that there is a universal basis upon which the various tongues are built.

Herschel could play the hautboy, the violin and the harpsichord. The organ came easy. When he played the organ in the Chapel at Bath, fair ladies forgot the Pump-Room, and the gallants followed them—naturally. Herschel became the rage. He was a handsome fellow, with a pride so supreme that it completed the circle, and people called it humility. He talked but little, and made himself scarce—a point every genius should ponder well.

The disarming of the populace—confiscating canes, umbrellas and parasols—before allowing people to enter an art-gallery is necessary; although it is a peculiar comment on humanity to think people have a tendency to smite, punch, prod and poke beautiful things. The same propensity manifests itself in wishing to fumble a genius. Get your coarse hands on Richard Mansfield if you can! Corral Maude Adams—hardly. To do big things, to create, breaks down tissue awfully, and to mix it with society and still do big things for society is impossible.

At Bath, Herschel was never seen in the Pump-Room, nor on the North Parade. People who saw him paid for the privilege. "In England about this time look out for a shower of genius," the almanackers might have said.

To Bath came two Irishmen, Edmund Burke and Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Burke rented rooms of Doctor Nugent, and married the doctor's daughter, and never regretted it. Sheridan also married a Bath girl, but added the right touch of romance by keeping the matter secret, with the intent that if either party wished to back out of the agreement it would be allowed. This was quite Irish-like, since according to English Law a marriage is a marriage until Limbus congeals and is used for a skating-rink.

With the true spirit of chivalry, Sheridan left the questions of publicity or secrecy to his wife: she could have her freedom if she wished. He was a fledgling barrister, with his future in front of him, the child of "strolling players"; she, the beautiful Miss Linlay, was a singer of note. Her father was the leader of the Bath Orchestra, and had a School of Oratory where young people agitated the atmosphere in orotund and tremolo and made the ether vibrate in glee. Doctor Linlay's daughter was his finest pupil, and with her were elucidated all his theories concerning the Sixteen Perspective Laws of Art. She also proved a few points in stirpiculture. She was a most beautiful girl of seventeen when Richard Brinsley Sheridan led her to the altar, or I should say to a Dissenting Pastor's back door by night. She could sing, recite, act, and impersonate in pantomime and Greek gown, the passions of Fear, Hate, Supplication, Horror, Revenge, Jealousy, Rage and Faith.

Romney moved down to Bath just so as to have Miss Linlay and Lady Hamilton for models. He posed Miss Linlay as the Madonna, Beulah, Rena, Ruth, Miriam and Cecilia; and Lady Hamilton for Susannah at the Bath, Alicia and Andromache, and also had her illustrate the Virtues, Graces, Fates and Passions.

When the beautiful Miss Linlay, the pride and pet of Bath, got ready to announce her marriage, she did it by simply changing the inscription beneath a Romney portrait that hung in the anteroom of the artist's studio, marking out the words "Miss Linlay," and writing over it, "Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan."

The Bath porchers who looked after other people's business, having none of their own, burbled and chortled like siphons of soda, and the marvel to all was that such a brilliant girl should thus throw herself away on a sprig of the law. "He acts, too, I believe," said Goldsmith to Doctor Johnson.

And Doctor Johnson said, "Sir, he does nothing else," thus anticipating James McNeil Whistler by more than a hundred years.

But alas for the luckless Linlay, the Delsarte of his day, poor man! he used words not to be found in Johnson's Dictionary, and outdid Cassius in the quarrel-scene to the Brutus of Richard Brinsley.

But very soon things settled down—they always do when mixed with time—and all were happy, or reasonably so, forever after.

Herschel resigned from Brabandt's Orchestra and remained in Bath. He taught music, played the organ, became first violinist for Professor Linlay and later led the orchestra when Linlay was on the road starring the one-night stands and his beautiful daughter.

Things seemed to prosper with the kindly and talented German. He was reserved, intellectual, and was respected by the best. He was making money—not as London brokers might count money, but prosperous for a mere music-teacher.

And so there came a day when he bought out the school of Professor Linlay, and became proprietor and leader of the famous Bath Orchestra.

But the talented Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan was sorely missed—a woman soloist of worth was needed.

Herschel thought and pondered. He tried candidates from London and a few from Paris. Some had voices, but no intellect. A very few had intellect, but were without voice. Some thought they had a voice when what they had was a disease. Other voices he tried and found guilty.

Those who had voice and spirit had tempers like a tornado.

Herschel decided to educate a soloist and assistant. To marry a woman for the sake of educating her was risky business—he knew of men who had tried it—for men have tried it since the time of the Cavemen.

A bright thought came to him! He would go back to Deutschland and get one of his sisters, and bring her over to England to help him do his work—just the very thing!

t was a most fortunate stroke for Herschel when he went back home to get one of his sisters to come over into Macedonia and help him. No man ever did a great work unless he was backed up by a good woman. There were five of these Herschel girls—three were married, so they were out of the question, and another was engaged. This left Caroline as first, last and only choice. Caroline was twenty-two and could sing a little.

She had appeared in concerts for her father when a child. But when the father died, the girl was set to work in a dressmaking and millinery shop, to help support the big family. The mother didn't believe that women should be educated—it unfitted them for domesticity, and to speak of a woman as educated was to suggest that she was a poor housekeeper.

In Greece of old, educated women were spoken of as "companions"—and this meant that they were not what you would call respectable. They were the intellectual companions of men. The Greek term of disrespect carried with it a trifle of a suggestion not intended, that is, that women who were not educated—not intellectual—were really not companionable—but let that pass. It is curious how this idea that a woman is only a scullion and a drudge has permeated society until even the women themselves partake of the prejudice against themselves.

Mother Herschel didn't want her daughters to become educated, nor study the science of music nor the science of anything. A goodly grocer of the Dutch School had been picked out as a husband for Caroline, and now if she went away her prospects were ruined—Ach, Mein Gott! or words to that effect. And it was only on William's promise to pay the mother a weekly sum equal to the wages that Caroline received in the dressmaking-shop that she gave consent to her daughter's going. Caroline arrived in England, wearing wooden shoon and hoops that were exceeding Dutch, but without a word of English. In order to be of positive use to her brother, she must acquire English and be able to sing—not only sing well, but remarkably well. In less than a year she was singing solo parts at her brother's concerts, to the great delight of the aristocrats of Bath.

They heard her sing, but they did not take her captive and submerge her in their fashionable follies as they would have liked to do.

The sister and the brother kept close to their own rooms. Caroline was the housekeeper, and took a pride in being able to dispense with all outside help. She was small in figure, petite, face plain but full of animation. All of her spare time she devoted to her music. After the concerts she and her brother would leave the theater, change their clothes and then walk off into the country, getting back as late as one or two o'clock in the morning. On these midnight walks they used to study the stars and talk of the wonderful work of Kepler and Copernicus. There were various requests that Caroline should go to London and sing, but she steadfastly refused to appear on a stage except where her brother led the orchestra. About this time Caroline wrote a letter home, which missive, by the way, is still in existence, in which she says: "William goes to bed early when there are no concerts or rehearsals. He has a bowl of milk on the stand beside him, and he reads Smith's 'Harmonics' and Ferguson's 'Astronomy.' I sit sewing in the next room, and occasionally he will call to me to listen while he reads some passage that most pleases him. So he goes to sleep buried beneath his favorite authors, and his first thought in the morning is how to obtain instruments so we can study the harmonics of the sky." And a way was to open: they were to make their own telescopes—what larks! Brother and sister set to work studying the laws of optics. In a secondhand store they found a small Gregorian reflector which had an aperture of about two inches.

This gave them a little peep into the heavens, but was really only a tantalization.

They set to work making a telescope-tube out of pasteboard. It was about eighteen feet long, and the "board" was made in the genuine pasteboard way—by pasting sheet after sheet of paper together until the substance was as thick and solid as a board.

So this brother and sister worked at all odd hours pasting sheet after sheet of paper—old letters, old books—with occasional strips of cloth to give extra strength. Lenses were bought in London, and at last our precious musical pair, with astronomy for their fad, had the satisfaction of getting a view of Saturn that showed the rings.

It need not be explained that astronomical observations must be made out of doors. Further, the whole telescope must be out of doors so as to get an even temperature. This is a fact that the excellent astronomers of the Mikado of Japan did not know until very recently. It seems they constructed a costly telescope and housed it in a costly observatory-house, with an aperture barely large enough for the big telescope to be pointed out at the heavens. Inside, the astronomer had a comfortable fire, for the season was then Winter and the weather cold. But the wise man could see nothing and the belief was getting abroad that the machine was bewitched, or that their Yankee brothers had lawsonized the buyers, when our own David P. Todd, of Amherst, happened along and informed them that the heat-waves which arose from their warm room caused a perturbation in the atmosphere which made star-gazing impossible. At once they made their house over, with openings so as to insure an even temperature, and Prince Fusiyama Noguchi wrote to Professor Todd, making him a Knight of the Golden Dragon on special order of the heaven-born Mikado.

The Herschels knew enough of the laws of heat and refraction to realize they must have an even temperature, but they forgot that pasteboard was porous.

One night they left their telescope out of doors, and a sudden shower transformed the straight tube into the arc of a circle. All attempts to straighten it were vain, so they took out the lenses and went to work making a tube of copper. In this, brother, sister and genius—which is concentration and perseverance—united to overcome the innate meanness of animate and inanimate things. A failure was not a failure to them—it was an opportunity to meet a difficulty and overcome it.

The partial success of the new telescope aroused the brother and the sister to fresh exertions. The work had been begun as a mere recreation—a rest from the exactions of the public which they diverted and amused with their warblings, concussions and vibrations.

They were still amateur astronomers, and the thought that they would ever be anything else had not come to them. But they wanted to get a better view of the heavens—a view through a Newtonian reflecting-telescope. So they counted up their savings and decided that if they could get some instrument-maker in London to make them a reflecting-telescope six feet long, they would be perfectly willing to pay him fifty pounds for it. This study of the skies was their only form of dissipation, and even if it was a little expensive it enabled them to escape the Pump-Room rabble and flee boredom and introspection. A hunt was taken through London, but no one could be found who would make such an instrument as they wanted for the price they could afford to pay. They found, however, an amateur lens-polisher who offered to sell his tools, materials and instruments for a small sum. After consultation, the brother and sister bought him out. So at the price they expected to pay for a telescope they had a machine-shop on their hands.

The work of grinding and polishing lenses is a most delicate business. Only a person of infinite patience and persistency can succeed at it.

In Allegheny, Pennsylvania, lives John Brashear, who, by his own efforts, assisted by a noble wife, graduated from a rolling-mill and became a maker of telescopes.

Brashear is practically the one telescope lens-maker of America since Alvan Clark resigned. There is no competition in this line—the difficulties are too appalling for the average man. The slightest accident or an unseen flaw, and the work of months or years goes into the dustbin of time, and all must be gone over again.

So when we think of this brother and sister sailing away upon an unknown ocean—working day after day, night after night, week after week, and month after month, discarding scores of specula which they had worked upon many weary hours in order to get the glass that would serve their purpose—we must remove our hats in reverence.

God sends great men in groups. From Seventeen Hundred Forty for the next thirty-five years the intellectual sky seemed full of shooting-stars. Watt had watched to a purpose his mother's teakettle; Boston Harbor was transformed into another kind of Hyson dish; Franklin had been busy with kite and key; Gibbon was writing his "Decline and Fall"; Fate was pitting the Pitts against Fox; Hume was challenging worshipers of a Fetish and supplying arguments still bright with use; Voltaire and Rousseau were preparing the way for Madame Guillotine; Horace Walpole was printing marvelous books at his private press at Strawberry Hill; Sheridan was writing autobiographical comedies; David Garrick was mimicking his way to immortality; Gainsborough was working the apotheosis of a hat; Reynolds, Lawrence, Romney, and West, the American, were forming an English School of Art; George Washington and George the Third were linking their names preparatory to sending them down the ages; Boswell was penning undying gossip; Blackstone was writing his "Commentaries" for legal lights unborn; Thomas Paine was getting his name on the blacklist of orthodoxy; Burke, the Irishman, was polishing his brogue so that he might be known as England's greatest orator; the little Corsican was dreaming dreams of conquest; Wellesley was having presentiments of coming difficulties; Goldsmith was giving dinners with bailiffs for servants; Hastings was defending a suit where the chief participants were to die before a verdict was rendered; Captain Cook was giving to this world new lands; while William Herschel and his sister were showing the world still other worlds, till then unknown.

hen the brother and sister had followed the subject of astronomy as far as Ferguson had followed it, and knew all that he knew, they thought they surely would be content.

Progress depends upon continually being dissatisfied. Now Ferguson aggravated them by his limitations.

In their music they amused, animated and inspired the fashionable idlers.

William gave lessons to his private pupils, led his orchestra, played the organ and harpsichord, and managed to make ends meet, and would have gotten reasonably rich had he not invested his spare cash in lenses, brass tubes, eyepieces, specula and other such trifles, and stood most of the night out on the lawn peering at the sky.

He had been studying stars for seven years before the Bath that he amused awoke to the fact that there was a genius among them. And this genius was not the idolized Beau Nash whose statue adorned the Pump-Room! No, it was the man whose back they saw at the concerts.

During all these years Herschel had worked alone, and he had scarcely ever mentioned the subject of astronomy with any one save his sister.

One night, however, he had moved his telescope into the middle of the street to get away from the shadows of the houses. A doctor who had been out to answer a midnight call stopped at the unusual sight and asked if he might look through the instrument.

Permission was courteously granted. The next day the doctor called on the astronomer to thank him for the privilege of looking through a better telescope than his own. The doctor was Sir William Watson, an amateur astronomer and all-round scientist, and member of the Royal Society of London.

Herschel had held himself high—he had not gossiped of his work with the populace, cheapening his thought by diluting it for cheap people. Watson saw that Herschel, working alone, isolated, had surpassed the schools.

There is a nugget of wisdom in Ibsen's remark, "The strongest man is he who stands alone," and Kipling's paraphrase, "He travels the fastest who travels alone."

The chance acquaintance of Herschel and Watson soon ripened into a very warm friendship.

Herschel amused the neurotics, Watson dosed and blistered them—both for a consideration. Each had a beautiful contempt for the society they served. Watson's father was of the purple, while Herschel's was of the people, but both men belonged to the aristocracy of intellect. Watson introduced Herschel into the select scientific circle of London, where his fine reserve and dignity made their due impress. Herschel's first paper to the Royal Society, presented by Doctor Watson, was on the periodical star in Collo Ceti. The members of the Society, always very jealous and suspicious of outsiders, saw they had a thinker to deal with.

Some one carried the news to Bath—a great astronomer was now among them! About this time Horace Walpole said, "Mr. Herschel will content me if, instead of a million worlds, he can discover me thirteen colonies well inhabited by men and women, and can annex them to the Crown of Great Britain in lieu of those it has lost beyond the Atlantic."

Bath society now took up astronomy as a fad, and fashionable ladies named the planets both backward and forward from a blackboard list set up in the Pump-House by Fanny Burney, the clever one.

Herschel was invited to give popular lectures on the music of the spheres. Herschel's music-parlors were besieged by good people who wanted to make engagements with him to look through his telescope.

One good woman gave the year, month, day, hour and minute of her birth and wanted her fortune told. Poor Herschel declined, saying he knew nothing of astronomy, but could give her lessons in music if desired.

In answer to the law of supply and demand, thus proving the efficacy of prayer, an itinerant astronomer came down from London and set up a five-foot telescope on the Parade and solicited the curious ones at a tuppence a peep. This itinerant interested the populace by telling them a few stories about the stars that were not recorded in Ferguson, and passed out his cards showing where he could be consulted as a fortune-teller during the day. Herschel was once passing by this street astronomer, who was crying his wares, and a sudden impulse coming over him to see how bad the man's lens might be, he stopped to take a peep at Earth's satellite. He handed out the usual tuppence, but the owner of the telescope loftily passed it back saying, "I takes no fee from a fellow-philosopher!"

This story went the rounds, and when it reached London it had been amended thus: Charles Fox was taking a ramble at Bath, ran across William Herschel at work, and mistaking him for an itinerant, the great statesman stopped, peeped through the aperture, and then passing out a tuppence moved along blissfully unaware of his error, for Herschel being a perfect gentleman would not embarrass the great man by refusing his copper.

When Herschel was asked if the story was true he denied the whole fabric, which the knowing ones said was further proof of his gentlemanly instincts—for a true gentleman will always lie under two conditions: first, to save a woman's honor; and second, to save a friend from embarrassment. As a profession, astrology has proved a better investment than astronomy. Astronomy has nothing to offer but abstract truth, and those who love astronomy must do so for truth's sake.

Astronomical discoveries can not be covered by copyright or patent, nor can any new worlds be claimed as private property and financed by stock companies, frenzied or otherwise. Astrology, on the other hand, relates to love-affairs, vital statistics, goldmines, misplaced jewels and lost opportunities.

Yet, in this year of grace, Nineteen Hundred Five, Boston newspapers carry a column devoted to announcements of astrologers, while the Cambridge Astronomical Observatory never gets so much as a mention from one year's end to the other. Besides that, astronomers have to be supported by endowment—mendicancy—while astrologers are paid for their prophecies by the people whose destinies they invent. This shows us how far as a nation we have traveled on the stony road of Science.

Science, forsooth? Oh, yes, of course—science—bang! bang! bang!