so modest, so timid, to compreliend the agitation with which he was seized, when the interrogator, drawing himself up to his full height, and with that brusque intonation, which he can assume when he pleases, said to him, with severe look, 'Is it you, sir, who pretend to have discovered the intra-Mercurial planet, and who have committed the grave offence of keeping your observation secret for nine months? I have to tell you, that I come with the intention of exposing your pretensions, and of demonstrating your great delusion, if not your dishonesty. Tell me, at once, categorically, what you have seen?' The lamb trembled all over at this rude summons of the lion; he tried to speak, but he only stammered out the following reply:—'At four o'clock, on the 26th of March last, faithful to my constant habit, I looked through my telescope, and observed the disc of the sun, when, all at once, I detected, near the eastern edge, a small black point, perfectly round, and sharply defined, passing across the disc, with a very sensible motion. It gradually, though quite perceptibly, increased its distance from the edge, but'"
Let us leave the Abbé Moigno's account to pause on this but. How awkwardly and fatally are buts often interjected in the smooth current of life! How often, too, is the dignity of science offended, and its success marred by contre-temps so ludicrous, or so little, that a man would not do well to be angry at them. A whisk of Diamond's tail, in Newton's
