The Portland daily press., 1881-07-06
Comets Sentimentally Considered.
Gossip :About Them Reported by the
Boston Transcript.

lestial body presenting nebulous aspect, and
travelling under the SUMS attractions %
The connection, then between comets and DC.
etry is so obvious that it seems hardly necessa-
ry to point it out, or more than to allude to the
influence OF Apollo, the sun god, and the chief
of the Muses., on the erratic movements of his
long-haired devotees. 1t is quite natural that
the unexpected appearances of these flaming
meteors should stir the imaginations of those
whose pens give local habitations and names
to the airiest nothings. Superstition and poe
sy are twin sisters. The mystery that has sur
rounded the gyrations of comets, never COM
pletely dissipated by astronomers though sci-
ence has lent her aid with telescope, spectre
scope and logarithms, has encouraged the lgno-
rant and imaginative to believe that the ap-
pearance of a comet in the skies was an omen
OF ill-"A strange portent and prodigious to
ken from heaven
Each of us lives in marrow horizon, and,
convinced that beyond there is nothing, sees
in the movements of the celestial bodies regu-
lar'or irregular, naught but the working of
special Providence, shaping our ends, no mat
ter how rough or how fine our hewing. The
followers of Duncan to Macbeth's castle heard,
where they lay lamenting in the air, strange
screams OF death, prophesying dire
combustion and confu sed events q sore
night that trifed the former knowings of
the septuagenarian at Inverness, and lasting
FAR into the following day. showed that the
heavens troubled with mans act, threatened
his bloody stage.
No, these fiery couriers can mean nothing
hnt noiecbiof fba
US light, warmth and life, and when, his
weary course ended, he makes his golden set,
the moon and all the radiant orbs of night IL
lume the darkened earth with softer light. Sun,
moon and stars proclaim, in their extended and
well-ordered course to.practical or aesthetic man
power that watches, that rules, that guards
all. But when eclipses deprive us of light of
sun or moon, what can it mean but heavens
anger? And what is the comet but q messen-
ger OF wrath? Listen to Milton:
'Tncensed with indignation Satan stood.
Unterrited Sand like q comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
3 In arctic sky, and from hfs horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war;"
Shakspeare's omniverous mind found in
comets food for inspiration aud their uncon-
ventional manGuvres suggested to him no end
OF SMILES Petruchio entering, very monster
In apparel, asks the frowning gentles where
fore they gaze
Gas if they saw some wondrous monument
Some comet, or unusual prodigy%'
'By being seldom seen, 1 could not stir,
But, like comet, was wondered att
says the fourth Henry in his attempt to bring
his wild boy to proper exhibition OF prince
ly manners. Marina, daughter of Tyres prince,
she that sang like one immortal declares her
self
ga maid that mere before invited eyes,
But have been Qazed like q comet
The popular belief in comets as heralds of i'll
tidings is referred to by the Duke of Bedford
as he invokes them
importing change of times and States,
Brandish pour CRY stal tresses in the sky,
And with them scourgd the bad revolving stars
That have consented unto Henry's deathl''
Charles of Orleans calls the burning torch
on Rouen's walls
"a comet of revenge,
A prophet to the fall of all our foes!"
Like the ancient oracles they could then be
made to foretell bad or good luck, at the will
of an ingenious interpreter. Calphurnia, dis
turbed by the horrid sights seen by the watch
on the night before the ides Of March reminds
the philosophic Caesar that
"when beggars die there are no comets seen;
The heavens themselves blaze forth the death Of
princes"
What were the certain stars of whom Ober-
ON speaks that shot madly from their sphere to
hear the seamaid's music, if not comets? or
the disrobed stars'to which srrolius compares,
Helenus as ON sight of Greciap and his sword
he sets the very wings OF reason to his heels?
or the stars with trains of fire. that, as Horatio
reminds those who with him have seen the bu-
ried majesty of Denmark walk, appeared lit
tie ere the mightiest Julius fell? or the blaz-
ing star that might betoken the birth OF good
woman, as the Countess of Rousillons clown
argues?
Let us leave him, the most distinguished
member of that race " of Imagination all COM
pact" for one who dealt in stern philosophy
William Whewell, the well-known author Of
numberless treatises of scientific, philosophic
and polemic character, argues that comets
must be good for something, that they are
probably inhabited, that, being subject to vio-
lent changes OF temperature, they must be
the abode of the damned-the happy cannot
dwell there. What is New England, then?
one might ask en- pGssdnt. 1t is not the bod
les of the wretched that abide in that fiery
mass, it is their souls. The comets, then, are
provinces of Hades. The comets tail-back-
ward-turned souls of the condemned crowding
to the shady side-grows larger as the sun is
nearer brought-more and more souls are una
BILE to endure the rays from the source Of all
life. The theory that comets are absorbed in
the sun has been favorite one with astrono-
mers. Thomson, by no means poet of strong
imaginative instincts, says
$50, from the dread mmensity Of space,
Returning with accelerated course,
The rushing comet to the sun descends."
Iennysons Ida refers TO this theory IN THE
Princess.
"There sinks the nebulous star we call the sum-
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound.''
And in ''The Ringlet' the lover prays for
lock of his MISTRESS hair, that. beyond the
chilling touch of Time it may flame and spark
le "till all the comets in heaven are cold"
Poe the most erratic of literary comets mar
rates, in fantastic sketch, the meetings OF the
lovers, Monos and Uno, in state of existence
succeeding the destruction of the world by
comet.
The belief that great events in the worlds
history have been preceded by the appearance
of comets is founded, in many instances on
facts and records that have thus far remained
unquestioned by philosopher or historian. The
celestial phenomena that excited the appre-
tensions of Caesars wife have been soberly re-
corded by more than one historian. Occasion
ally the popular belief that debit or the rem
tree of a comet was to be taken as an indication
OF a wrath to come, dies frg has been sharply
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