Amador ledger., 1907-08-30
SPACE AND FAITH.

Victor Hugo's centenary has
brought forth publication of the
remnants of this great genius.
That is to say, of the scraps from his
library workshop. These were left in
the form of thought fragments which
the author intended from time to
time to incorporate in some complete
work.
Those familiar with literary com
position are aware that sometimes a
thought, a vision, an inspiration
comes unbldden, unexpected. 1t
must be seized and committed to
paper; but 1t may be years before the
appropriate place for its use appears.
Victor Hugo left enough of these
intellectual scintillations, which had
never found fit place, to make a
book, and among them are some OF
the most brilliant flashes of his gent
US, the most daring flights of his i'm
agination.
Strangely impressive are Hugo s
meditations upon things of the inf
nlte-this man who could look straight
at infinity and translate some of its
echoes for all ears that can hear. He
asks: "What vehicle shall we adopt
to bridge the immensities?
The locomotive travels fifteen lea
CUES an hour. The hurricane travels
sixty leagues an hour. The cannon
ball travels seven hundred leagues an
hour.
The locomotive drags. the hurri-
cane limps, the cannon ball is tor
toise.
Let US bestride ray of light.
This Is mount four thousand
times swifter than the cannon ball,
four million two hundred thousand
times swifter than the hurricane, and
seventeen million times swifter than
the locomotive.
1t makes, as you know, seventy
thousand leagues second.
Start.
Light launches you from the earth
to the sun in eight minutes, from the
sun to Oceanus in four hours, from
Oceanus to Centaurus in three years
and eight months, from Centaurus to
the Pole Star in twenty eight years.
from the Pole Star to the Milky Way
in sixteen thousand eight hundred
years, from the Milky Way to the
nebula of Canes Venaticl in five mil
ion years you have not yet taken a
step.
1he apparitions of the universe will
continue to loom.
The unsoundable will remain before
you in its entirety.
Beyond the visible the invisible, be-
yond the invisible the unknown.
Everywhere, everywhere, in the re-
NTH, at the nadir, in front, behind,
above. in the heights, in the depths,
looms the formidable darkness of the
Infinite.
And as to the meaning of it all, the
law of it all, the mind of it all? Its
lesson is that of wonder and of pray er
What, then, is there back of all
this?
Nothing, say your
| Nothing?
What /, worm of the earth, am
possessed OF an intelligence, and this
immensely Is without one. Oh, par
don us, Abyss of Infinity.
No more calculation possible; the
same swarming and the same genesis
everywhere, in the celestial sphere as
in the drop of water; the three thou
sand species of ephemeIa discovered
on single rosebush by Bonnet of &C.
neya; Saturn IS ring with its diameter
of sIxtY-seven thousand five hundred
leagues; the seventeen thousand facets
of fiy's eye; the three multi colorcd
stars of Aldebaran, which revolve
concentrlcally at the rate of one hun
dred million leagues a minute; the
ant dragging a grub over a jasmine
leaf; the circulation of parallaXes,
that sidereal ladder vainly applied to
the fixed stars; the diameter of our
orbit-seventy million leagues, yet
insufficient to serve as basis for the
triangulation OF the stars; the neb,
ulea. those clouds of the abyss; those
atomic forests that we call mold; the
hurricanes of Jupiter; the volcanoes
of Mars; the hydras swimming in
globules of blood; the endless life
forever visible above and below
deprive me of all this if you would
have me cease to pray.
A healthy man is a king IN his owI
right; an unhealthy man is an IN
happy slave. Burdock Blood Bltter'
builds up sound health-keeps yor
we'll.
Ledger and Weekly Chicago Int e
Ocean 81. so year.
II yX& nNV0TTKN0W /