A Tale of a Comet.
"I could a Tale unfold."—Hamlet.
What I am? What I am made of? What class or family of celestial bodies do I belong to? How many there are of us? Where do we come from? Where are we going to? What offices do we perform—what purpose subserve in the great economy of the heavens? Tell you all about us?—Well, you are inquisitive, my little terrestrial friends, and it appears to me, a little overmuch so; and small information, I trow, will you get out of me on most of these points. Still, I cannot but admire the indomitable perseverance with which you are prying into the abyss of space, seeking to fathom the secrets of the universe; and although some of you have of late rather offended the dignity of the great family to which I belong, denying us even the possession of anything like a substantial body,—calling us "visible nothings"—affirming that they know all about us, that they can look right through us, and giving us somewhat plainly to understand that they regard us very much in the light of exploded humbugs,[1] I yet will bear no malice, and will en-
- ↑ M. Babinet, a distinguished French philosopher, in his "Études et Lectures sur les Sciences d'Observation," is indeed
