ward the remotest regions of the visible. It rests
on one star and another, like the butterfly on the flower. It seeks what
will best respond to its aspirations: and thus a kind of communication
is established, and, as it were, protected by all Nature in these silent
appeals. Our sense of solitude has disappeared. We feel that, if only as
infinitesimal atoms, we form part of that immense universe, and this
dumb language of the starry night is more eloquent than any speech. Each
star becomes a friend, a discreet confidant, often indeed a precious
counsellor, for all the thoughts it suggests to us are pure and holy.

Is any poem finer than the book written in letters of fire upon the
tablets of the firmament? Nothing could be more ideal. And yet, the
poetic sentiment that the beauty of Heaven awakens in our soul ought
not to veil its reality from us. That is no less marvelous than the
mystery by which we were enchanted.

And here we may ask ourselves how many there are, even among thinking
human beings, who ever raise their eyes to the starry heavens? How many
men and women are sincerely, and with unfeigned curiosity, interested in
these shining specks, and inaccessible luminaries, and really desirous
of a better acquaintance with them?

Seek, talk, ask in the intercourse of daily life. You, who read these
pages, who already love the Heavens, and comprehend them, who desire to
account for our existence in this world, who seek to know what the Earth
is, and what Heaven--you shall witness that the number of those
inquiring after truth is so limited that no one dares to speak of it, so
disgraceful is it to the so-called intelligence of our race. And yet!
the great Book of the Heavens is open to all eyes. What pleasures await
us in the study of the Universe! Nothing could speak more eloquently to
our heart and intellect!

Astronomy is the science _par excellence_. It is the most beautiful and
most ancient of all, inasmuch as it dates back to the indeterminate
times of highest antiquity. Its mission is not only to make us
acquainted with the innumerable orbs by which our nights are
illuminated, but it is, moreover, thanks to it that we know where and
what we are. Without it we should live as the blind, in eternal
ignorance of the very conditions of our terrestrial existence. Without
it we should still be penetrated with the naive error that reduced the
entire Universe to our minute globule, making our Humanity the goal of