a signis
atque picturis, instructaque rebus iis omnibus quibus abundant ii qui
beati putantur, nec tamen exissent unquam supra terram; accepissent
autem fama et auditione, esse quoddam numen et vim Deorum,--deinde
aliquo tempore patefactis terrae faucibus ex illis abditis sedibus
evadere in haec loca quae nos incolimus, atque exire potuissent; cum
repente terram et maria coelumque, vidissent; nubium magnitudinem
ventorumque vim, cognovissent; aspexissentque solem, ejusque tum
magnitudinem, pulchritudinemque; tum etiam efficientiam cognovissent,
quod is diem efficeret, toto coelo luce diffusa; cum autem terras nox
opacasset, tum coelum totum cernerent astris distinctum et ornatum,
lunaeque luminum varietatem tum crescentis tum senescentis, corumque
omnium ortus et occasus atque in aeternitate ratos immutabilesque
cursus;--haec cum viderent, profecto et esse Deos, et haec tanta opera
Deorum esse, arbitrarentur."[A]

There is much by day to engage the attention of the Observatory; the
sun, his apparent motions, his dimensions, the spots on his disc (to us
the faint indications of movements of unimagined grandeur in his
luminous atmosphere), a solar eclipse, a transit of the inferior
planets, the mysteries of the spectrum;--all phenomena of vast
importance and interest. But night is the astronomer's accepted time; he
goes to his delightful labors when the busy world goes to its rest. A
dark pall spreads over the resorts of active life; terrestrial objects,
hill and valley, and rock and stream, and the abodes of men disappear;
but the curtain is drawn up which concealed the heavenly hosts. There
they shine and there they move, as they moved and shone to the eyes of
Newton and Galileo, of Kepler and Copernicus, of Ptolemy and Hipparchus;
yes, as they moved and shone when the morning stars sang together, and
all the sons of God shouted for joy. All has changed on earth; but the
glorious heavens remain unchanged. The plow passes over the site of
mighty cities,--the homes of powerful nations are desolate, the
languages they spoke are forgotten; but the stars that shone for them
are shining for us; the same eclipses run their steady cycle; the same
equinoxes call out the flowers of spring, and send the husbandman to the
harvest; the sun pauses at either tropic as he did when his course
began; and sun and moon, and planet and satellite, and star and
constellation and galaxy, still bear witness to the power, the wisdom,
and the lo