on
being at the full, some one writes with blood on a looking-glass
anything he has a mind to; and having given notice of it to another
person, he stands behind that other and turns towards the moon the
letters written in the glass. The other looking fixedly on the shining
orb reads in it all that is written on the mirror as if it were written on
the moon. [278] This is precisely the _modus operandi_ by which
the knavish have imposed upon the foolish in all ages. The
manipulator of the doctrine stands behind his credulous disciple,
writing out of sight his invented science or theology, and writing too
often with the blood of some innocent victim. The poor patient
student is meanwhile gazing on the moon in dreamy devotion; until
as the writing on the mirror is read with solemn intonation, it all
appears before his moon-struck gaze as a heavenly revelation. Woe
to the truth-loving critic who breaks the enchantment and the mirror,
crying out in the vernacular tongue, Your mysteries are myths, your
writings are frauds; and the fair moon is innocent of the lying
imposition!

To multitudes the moon has always been an object of terror and
dread. Not only is it a supramundane and magnified man--that it
will always be while its spots are so anthropoid, and man himself is
so anthropomorphic--but it has ever been, and still is, a being of
maleficent and misanthropic disposition. As Mr. Tylor says, "When
the Aleutians thought that if any one gave offence to the moon, he
would fling down stones on the offender and kill him; or when the
moon came down to an Indian squaw, appearing in the form of a
beautiful woman with a child in her arms, and demanding an
offering of tobacco and fur-robes: what conceptions of personal life
could be more distinct than these?" [279] Personal and distinct,
indeed, but far from pleasant. Another author tells us that "in some
parts of Scotland to point at the stars or to do aught that might be
considered an indignity in the face of the sun or moon, is still to be
dreaded and avoided; so also it was not long since, probably still is,
in Devonshire and Cornwall. The Jews seem to have been equally
superstitious on this point (Jer. viii. 1, 2), and the Persians believed
leprosy to be an infliction on those who had committed some
offence against the sun." [280] Southey supplies us with an
illustration of the moon in a fit of dudgeon. He is describing the
sufferings of poor Hans Stade, when he was caught by t