I had written thus far when it occurred to me that I had still my own name
to choose and that soon the whistle of the postman would be heard in the
street. I went out into the orchard to take counsel with the stars. The far
horizon was still stained wine-red with the last embers of the day;
northward over the shoulder of the hill the yellow moon was rising
full-orbed into the night sky and the firmament glittered with a thousand
lamps.
How near and familiar they seem to one in the solitude of the country! In
the town our vision is limited to the street. We see only the lights of the
pavement and hear only the rattle of the unceasing traffic. The stars seem
infinitely removed from our life.
But here they are like old neighbours for whom we never look in vain,
intimate though eternal, friendly and companionable though far off. There
is Orion coming over the hill, and there the many-jewelled Pleiades, and
across the great central dome of the sky the vast triangle formed by the
Pole Star, golden Arcturus (not now visible), and ice-blue Vega.
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