Page:A Voyage in Space (1913).djvu/317

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THE STARS
297

think of actual echoes first. Suppose I repeat Tennyson's lines from the "Charge of the Light Brigade" in an even voice thus—

Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them.

We might take that to represent the light of a star shining steadily, because I said the words in

Voyage in Space page297.jpg

September 20, 1901.November 13, 1901.

Fig. 96.—The expansion of the nebulous appearance about Nova Persei.

an even monotonous way. But now let me say them to represent the way a new star blazes up suddenly—

Came through the

jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

You see I began faint and steady, because there seems to be generally a faint steady star which blazes out into a new one: then suddenly I mounted