THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED.
“I SUPPOSE he discovered in me, through the obscurity of the room, some
tokens of amazement and doubt, for after a short pause he proceeded
thus:—
“‘Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend me, for I am
probably the first of human beings to whom this trust has been imparted.
Nor do I know whether to deem this distinction a reward or punishment.
Since I have possessed it I have been far less happy than before, and
nothing but the consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to
support the weariness of unremitted vigilance.’
“‘How long, sir,’ said I, ‘has this great office been in your hands?’
“‘About ten years ago,’ said he, ‘my daily observations of the changes of
the sky led me to consider whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I
could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This
contemplation fastened on my mind, and I sat days and nights in imaginary
dominion, pouring upon this country and that the showers of fertility,
and seconding every fall of rain with a due proportion of sunshine. I
had yet only the will to do good, and did not imagine that I should ever
have the power.
“‘One day as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in
my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains,
and raise the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I
commanded rain to fall; and by comparing the time of my command with that
of the inundation, I found that the clouds had listened to my lips.’
“‘Might not some other cause,’ said I, ‘produce this concurrence? The
Nile does not always rise on the same day.’
“‘Do not believe,’ said he, with impatience, ‘that such objections could
escape me. I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured
against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of
madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a man
like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible,
and the incredible from the false.’
“‘Why, sir,’ said I, ‘do you call that incredible which you know, or
think you know, to be true?’
“‘Because,’ said he, ‘I cannot prove it by any external evidence; and I
know too well the laws of demonstration to think that my conviction ought
to influence another, who cannot, like me, be conscious of its force. I
therefore shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It is
sufficient that I feel this power that I have long possessed, and every
day exerted it. But the life of man is short; the infirmities of age
increase upon me, and the time will soon come when the regulator of the
year must mingle with the dust. The care of appointing a successor has
long disturbed me; the night and the day have been spent in comparisons
of all the characters which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet
found none so worthy as thyself.’”