The stars - 1901 Author:Simon Newcomb Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III CONSTELLATION AND STAR NAMES Now came still evening on, and twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad. now glowed the firmament W... more »ith living sapphires ; Hesperus that led The starry host rode brightest.—Milton. IT is strongly recommended to the reader to study the constellations for himself. If he desires to feel all the sublimity associated with them, he must not be satisfied with the hurried glance or occasional survey to which one commonly confines himself in his evening walk. What he should do is, on a clear and moonless summer evening, to escape from his usual surroundings, and go to a place, whether field or housetop, where there is nothing to obstruct his vision, or disturb the current of his thoughts. There he must recline on his back, so as to take in as much as possible of the starry vault at one view. One doing this for the first time will be surprised at the magnificence of the spectacle. As he looks upon the " universal frame " and reflects that it has stood as he now sees it through ages compared with which the whole period of human history is but a fleetingmoment, the mind will be filled with a consciousness of infinity and eternity which never before entered it. Other sights become stale from custom, but this can never lose its relish. It can be enjoyed without knowing the name of a constellation, but is more impressive when one reflects that the eyes of man have gazed upon and studied it ever since our race appeared on earth. In ancient times the practice was adopted of imagining the figures of heroes and animals to be so outlined in the heavens as to include in each figure a large group of the brighter stars. In a few cases some vague resemblance may be traced between the configurations of the stars and the features of the ob...« less