THE COMING COMET.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1341, 5 June 1872, Page 2

THE COMING COMET.

(From-the Saturday Review.) Nervous people, as H is credibly stated, have been put to great anxiety by the announcement which recently appeared in the paper*, that a distinguished astronomer had discovered a monstrous comet 1 usliing straight towards us with amazing vapidity from the remote abysses of space, and yet pursuing its course with as little tendency to deviation as though it. were tunning upon rails. Some friendly planet might by possibility put forth a helping hand, and twist the approaching monster from its course, as the hero of a novel diverts the runaway steed jnst as it is about to crush the heroine. Good-natured astronomers have taken pains to explain that there is no such comet coming; that if it were coming it would be a very welcome visitor; and that we have already passed through a comet and found it less obnoxious than a London fog. The astronomers mean well, but they are terribly prosaic people. They ought surely to understand that they are robbing us of a lively pleasure. Have they not in their boyhood, for even astronomers have been boys, snatched a fearful joy from the ghosts and other supernatural dangers with which a childish imagination lov*s to people the dim borders of it-, little world? Would anybody willingly give up that delicious feeling of superstitious awe which was at once the charm and terror of his early years, and have all phantoms suppressed till theworldshouldbeuo morehaunted than a railroad station"? Astronomers have already taken terrible liberties with the comet of our childhood. Th.-» huge fiery monster plunging through the sky with a death dealing tail has been weighed and measured and had, as it v ere a mathematical hook put in his jaws, till his imprestveness has departed from him. We know the legend of Clavier's descent into the internal regions, and of his declaration that the horns and hoot's which terrified our infancy were unmistakeable proofs of a gram in i vermis nature. Even so (he comet has been lowered in popular estimation till our skie« have become as empty of horrors as Hyde Park of tigers. Sir VV. Thomson indeed was kind enough last autumn to revive some of our ancient alarms, and to assure us thai some time or other the world would be smashed to atoms, like a bursting shell, bv a fate as inexorable as that which will bring about a collision at a raetiopolitan junction. Of course his fellowphilosophers found fault with some of his details, for science is a remorseless enemy to poetry.

Let us, however, for a brief period "dally with false surmise," and endeavor to return to tie simple faith of a child Let us imagine that the astronomer has really prophesied our approaching fate, and I hat the prophesy is correct. Within a few weeks we shall be able without the help of telescopes to see the little cloud, no bigger than a mans hand, and fraught with omens more dreadful than have ever before affrighted the human race. It will grow slowly at first, but afterwards with a iate of increase almost perceptible to our naked vision, till at last the whole sky will be lit up with the fiery portent. Night by night we shall watch its terrible growth, and before long it will be bril liant enough to outshine the sun itself The temperature will rise to be first tropical, and then hotter than anything that is endured in the hotte>.t room of a Turkish bath. But the time dining which we shall be conscious of excessive heat will be brief indeed. The two large bodies plunging towards each other at a pace compaied with which the speed of a cannon-ball is absolute rest, will crash into each other with a hideous collision. If we happen to be placed between two such antagonists, we shall not have time even foi an ejaculation. The petty race of insects that crawl amongst the little excrescences on the earth's skin will be instantaneously dismissed from existence. On the other side of the world we shall perhaps have just one Hash of sensation. We shall see the mountains, without any metaphor, skipping like rams, and be oursehes sent spinning into space just as the dust—to indulge in a humble simile —is knocked olf the under side of a

carpet by the blows upon its upper surface. For an instant we shall have a glimpse o£ the broken fragments of" the earth starting off, each on its new career, to whirl through the universe,, each bearing with it—so we shall remember on the faith of a President of the British Association —some minute genii** to be planted, if they- have goetl, luck, on some distant planet,, and there to begin over and over again that endless process of evolution which will; have come to> so summary a conclusion, here. Or, if. we please, we may contemplate another alternative,, and suppose that we just miss the nucleus of" the comet, but we are wrapped in its. fiery tail,, which, will turn, oceans intosteam,, dissipate the eternal ice of the poles, and singe the- world into- thelikeness of an American prairie after a fire. Kothingwill.be left but- a vast surface of grey ashes, gradually to be converted into mud as the-watew*- again condense and descend upon the- depopulated planet. Alas ! we cannot claim-. the eloquence which would be necessary to do justice to such tremendous catastrophes. Milton, writing under thesuperintendence of Dr Gumming might possibly be equal to the task of describing the complete and instantaneous ruin, of a world; but nature is uot prodigal; she only gives one such, mind, at a. time.

We have venture'! to suggest thebare outlines of a purely imaginary picture which our readers niuxt fill up for themselves. It is rather curious to inquire what would be the state of our minds if such a catastrophe could really be predicted on .scientific grounds, and" we were reall}' to believe the men of .science. It is necessary to notice this last condition, for it is highly probable that we should resolutely decline to believe anything so unpleasant. Thereare limits to one's faith even in mathematics, and we should insist upon our prophets prophesying smooth things even if they had to twist a few laws oi nature for the purpose. But let usimagine that this difficulty is surmounted If we were really convinced; that at 4 o'clock p.m., Greenwich time,, on the next 12th of August; the whole human race and its dwelling-place would be summarily knocked to atoms, what would be the effect on our minds 1 The most natural supposition is perhapsthat the whole com so of affairs would, be thrown out of gear, and that weshould be reduced to the state of a city demoralised by a plague. Persons of strong religious feeling would either go. into retirement, or would endeavor to awaken the consciences of the the sinners aiound them ; whilst the sinners, would become utterly reckless, and wouid remember that there was no usein keeping a cellar of wine to be consumed by a comet. Some such tendency would, of course, be manifest;, but the question remains, how far it would be overpowered by the opposite tendency to be carried on by simple vis inertia; in our old grooves. After a little time one would become more orless accustomed to the prospect. One: would feel that, if it was not worth while to undertake auything new* neither was it worth while to. give up the old employments, which have become necessary parts of our existence. There are innumerablestories such as that of the man who insisted on taking his accustomed pill an hour before he was hanged i and if we were all under sentenee of exeoution—as, indeed, sermons are apt to remind us that we are, e\en without the intervention of a comet—-it is perhaps i*eosonable to suppose that we should act in the same spirit, The great bulk of mankind, would say, It's all very well; we shall not want anything more after the 12oh at' August; hut that is noreason why we should not have our regular meals and enjoy our newspapers at breakfast. It does not appear inconceivable that the Tich borne would drag its slaw length along though it were perfectly clear that in a lew months the estate would be-Hying in fragments, some towards Shins,and others to the Pole Star ; that nobody's. title, however perfect, would he of much value when the lands in question, were situated in different comets as well as countries; and a writ of ejectment had been served upon all parties with, an, emphasis which there '-va> no resists

Ing. We sn&pect that cargoes of preserved meat would lie exported from Australia, though ii was certain that the seas wonld be dried up long before they could make even the most rapid passage. The daily papers would continue to appearand indeed would be driving a roaring trade; everybody would be anxious to have latent intelligence as to the comet, the details as to its structure revealed by the spectroscope, and the result of the last calculations as to the exact moment ot collision. Editors would be provided with that invaluable boon—a topic, the interest of which would be steadily in ci easing to rhe end of the world : and, though they would doubtless receive letters up to the last from correspondents anxious to explain the causes of the dulness of sermons, the decline in +he trustworthiness of servants, and the carelessness with which excursion trains were managed, they would be more independent of those interminable, though now fortunately to be terminated, con | troversies. And when we reflect on the irrepressible eloquence and the strong sense of duiy of the British journalist, there is nothing of which we feel more confident than that the morning of the 12th of August would be signalised by the appearance of an article in the highest style of the Daily Telegraph, summing up the history of the world in a few globing paragraphs, and congratulating mankind on the fact that their extinction would at any rate be contemporaneous with *hat of lhem u elves and of William Ewart Gladstone. FrPbh editions would be published up to the latest possible moment, and we should be encouraged to hope that germs flving off to other worlds on the fragment of our own carried with them a potential Telegraph. The persons for whom we should feel the deepest sympathy would be the prophets, as it would be so very annoying n reflection to Dr Gumming that, if it bad not been for thi> ill-regulated comet, the Battle ot* Armageddon would have taken plaee next year, and the accuracy of his prognostications have been signal Iv verified.

We are, it may be, assuming a little too much. There are certainly some things in which a change would be per eeptible. There would be no betting, for example, on next year's Derby, am' the funds could not be influenced by rumors of approaching wirs. The spirit of gambling would have to take a different shape, and roulette or rouge, et noir would gain a sudden popularity in place of speculation on more distant events. But in one form or other, in spite of the emotions of the more excitable sort of people, we fancy that the machinery of life, from its greatest down to its pettiest operations, woidd have to go on woiking up to the very eve of the catastrophe, from the sheer incapacity of most persons to break off their accustomed habits. We have not considered the case of a partial crash; nor do we much care to ask -what our feelings would be if America or Ireland or China were suddenly swept out of existence, or still less what we should feel if we knew that it was an even chance whether the ball would fall upon them or upon us. Thai reflection opens a boundless field of speculation ; and we will only express our conviction that a good many people would still enjoy their dinners, and even feel it as a not unpleasant excitement, if a whole hemisphere were crushed to-moriow, so long as it *vas not their hemisphere. But whether we are to consider this as a melancholy proof of our deficient sympathies, or as a merciful arrangement to save us from unnecessary pain, is a problem which we cannot discuss.