Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1907-02-28

long the delicious agony OF his unique suicide Interest
in his surroundings compounded and inspired him.
He studied himself less critically than the vast
depths of crimson nohngnesS that lost him meteor
plungng out of imtable space toward the great bosom
OF the sun, to feed it. He felt colossal in vanity an
in reality. His thoughts reverted to the events
of the past few days. his lost home the calamities
that had crowded upon him to Her. Would she
ever know his fate? How soon would there be COM
motion over his disappearance sudden and complete
it. mountain pinnacle, he had burst to atoms
and been blown back to his primeval dust? He knew
that one least far down below where it yet gray
dawn with eagle orb pressed to the eyepeCe OF the
great university refraCtor scanning the zenith and very
likely the suns rays gstened upon his crystal coffin,
watched his progress trembling more for the of
stupendous experiment than for the fate of its prob
able victim.
As the sun mounted higher, its brlliancy became
crucial 1t was with difficulty that Heston could make
the merest notes, covering his face with his hands
continually, the parchment over them. Nevertheless,
in that rarefed atmosphere, it seemed that the
pierced them like X-rays, although its heat could not
penetrate the vacuum bulbs in which he inclosed
any more than could the cold. Often he thought he
the very interior working of his hand laid over
his eyes, sharp the light the bones, the Snews,
and the ruby blood coursng the veins
Then came long lapse into Inconsistencies. The
intense glare of the almost vertical rays the fanness of
hunger and the strain of an abnormal attitude both
physical and mental combined to induce deep
ethargy from which the voyager into unknown regions
walked to find the sun low in the west having passed.
him like whte-hot proecte shot out of space, curry
ing earth into space again. Its brillianCy was
waning, and he rallied from his stupor. He noted his
environment and the slower throb of the engine Mani
testify, he going vastly diminished speed Al
ready the world he had left was claiming him again,
and the of 26o, 900, 900 900 cubic miles of solid
earth and water beneath exerting upon his frail
shell the irresistible attraction of gravitaOn, applying
an invisible brake to his extraordinary vehicle.
The blue of the sky overhead had deepened to indigo
a mantle of purple and gold dimmng the west, where
the sunset glorious than the daybreak
had been One by the stars sprang out of the deep
blue vault more brilliant, more dazzlingly beautiful
with and then a shooting meteor that, bombarded
of space, seemed to alarmngly the rash
intruder into these great attitudes, trailing his
pathway avalanche Of effulgent meteoric dust.
There stood Jupiter monarch OF the planets all his
five perfectly visible to the naked eye. Far to
the eastward blazed Saturn with his triple belts,
longer mere speCk but like lamp of glory hung aOft
in a cathedral dome, with Mars opposed, never so
crimson with its Wondrous tracery of canals and noun
tain ranges, revealed to the aWed observer through
powerful glass. He longer wondered that astrono
mers seek high places = for could mans greatest
telescope be raised such height the mysteries of the
heavens would be mysteries no more.
Heston's sense of feeling rendered extremey
acute by hours of absolute silence deprivation of
hearing assured him. the feeble beating of the engine
that for long time he had been going upward through
the sunset with sowness as extreme as had been the
velocity with which he had dared up through the dawn
and that he must now be nearing his goal He looked