the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly
unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy
of the day.

EIROS.

The individual calamity was as you say entirely unanticipated; but
analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with
astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you
left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy
writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire,
as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to the
immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from that
epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were divested of
the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been
well established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites
of Jupiter, without bringing about any sensible alteration either in the
masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had long regarded
the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable tenuity, and as
altogether incapable of doing injury to our substantial globe, even in
the event of contact. But contact was not in any degree dreaded; for
the elements of all the comets were accurately known. That among them we
should look for the agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been
for many years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild
fancies had been, of late days, strangely rife among mankind; and,
although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual apprehension
prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this
announcement was generally received with I know not what of agitation
and mistrust.

The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and it was
at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at perihelion, would
bring it into very close proximity with the earth. There were two or
three astronomers, of secondary note, who resolutely maintained that a
contact was inevitable. I cannot very well express to you the effect of
this intelligence upon the people. For a few short days they would
not believe an assertion which their intellect so long employed among
worldly considerations could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a
vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding of even
the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge
lied not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was no