e earth, the telescope is made to follow it automatically
by an ingenious clock-work arrangement. No place, short of the temple of
the living God, can be more solemn. The jars of the restless life around
it do not disturb the serene intelligence of the half-reasoning
apparatus. Nothing can stir the massive pier but the shocks that shake
the solid earth itself. When an earthquake thrills the planet, the
massive turret shudders with the shuddering rocks on which it rests, but
it pays no heed to the wildest tempest, and while the heavens are
convulsed and shut from the eye of the far-seeing instrument it waits
without a tremor for the blue sky to come back. It is the type of the
true and steadfast man of the Roman poet, whose soul remains unmoved
while the firmament cracks and tumbles about him. It is the material
image of the Christian; his heart resting on the Rock of Ages, his eye
fixed on the brighter world above.

I did not say all this while we were looking round among these wonders,
quite new to many of us. People don't talk in straight-off sentences
like that. They stumble and stop, or get interrupted, change a word,
begin again, miss connections of verbs and nouns, and so on, till they
blunder out their meaning. But I did let fall a word or two, showing the
impression the celestial laboratory produced upon me. I rather think I
must own to the "Rock of Ages" comparison. Thereupon the "Man of
Letters," so called, took his pipe from his mouth, and said that he did
n't go in "for sentiment and that sort of thing. Gush was played out."

The Member of the Haouse, who, as I think, is not wanting in that homely
good sense which one often finds in plain people from the huckleberry
districts, but who evidently supposes the last speaker to be what he
calls "a tahlented mahn," looked a little puzzled. My remark seemed
natural and harmless enough to him, I suppose, but I had been distinctly
snubbed, and the Member of the Haouse thought I must defend myself, as is
customary in the deliberative body to which he belongs, when one
gentleman accuses another gentleman of mental weakness or obliquity. I
could not make up my mind to oblige him at that moment by showing fight.
I suppose that would have pleased my assailant, as I don't think he has a
great deal to lose, and might have made a little capital out of me if he
could have got a laugh out of the Member or either of the dummies,--I beg
their pardon again, I mean the