Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850

Оглавление

Various. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850

MEMORIES OF MISS JANE PORTER

SHOOTING STARS AND METEORIC SHOWERS

A FIVE DAYS’ TOUR IN THE ODENWALD

THE MYSTERIOUS PREACHER

ASSYRIAN SECTS

THE APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS

UGLINESS REDEEMED – A TALE OF A LONDON DUST-HEAP

THE OLD SQUIRE

PRESENCE OF MIND – A FRAGMENT

FEARFUL TRAGEDY – A MAN-EATING LION

THE HAUNTED HOUSE IN CHARNWOOD FOREST

LEDRU ROLLIN – BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

A CHIP FROM A SAILOR’S LOG

THE TWO THOMPSONS

HABITS OF THE AFRICAN LION

THE OLD CHURCH-YARD TREE

THE ENGLISH PEASANT

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

AN AERIAL VOYAGE

ANDREW CARSON’S MONEY; A STORY OF GOLD

NEANDER

THE DISASTERS OF A MAN WHO WOULDN’T TRUST HIS WIFE

LITTLE MARY. – A TALE OF THE IRISH FAMINE

THE OLD WELL IN LANGUEDOC

SUMMER PASTIME

THE CHEMISTRY OF A CANDLE

THE MYSTERIOUS COMPACT

IN TWO PARTS. – PART I

PART II. – CONCLUSION

WORDSWORTH’S POSTHUMOUS POEM.10

THE LITERARY PROFESSION – AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS

THE BROTHERS CHEERYBLE

WRITING FOR PERIODICALS

ANECDOTE OF LORD CLIVE

THE IMPRISONED LADY

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY

MONTHLY RECORD OF CURRENT EVENTS

LITERARY NOTICES

Fashions for Early Autumn

Отрывок из книги

From every region of the globe and in all ages of time within the range of history, exhibitions of apparent instability in the heavens have been observed, when the curtains of the evening have been drawn. Suddenly, a line of light arrests the eye, darting like an arrow through a varying extent of space, and in a moment the firmament is as sombre as before. The appearance is exactly that of a star falling from its sphere, and hence the popular title of shooting star applied to it. The apparent magnitudes of these meteorites are widely different, and also their brilliancy. Occasionally, they are far more resplendent than the brightest of the planets, and throw a very perceptible illumination upon the path of the observer. A second or two commonly suffices for the individual display, but in some instances it has lasted several minutes. In every climate it is witnessed, and at all times of the year, but most frequently in the autumnal months. As far back as records go, we meet with allusions to these swift and evanescent luminous travelers. Minerva’s hasty flight from the peaks of Olympus to break the truce between the Greeks and Trojans, is compared by Homer to the emission of a brilliant star. Virgil, in the first book of the Georgics, mentions the shooting stars as prognosticating weather changes:

Various hypotheses have been framed to explain the nature and origin of these remarkable appearances. When electricity began to be understood, this was thought to afford a satisfactory explanation, and the shooting stars were regarded by Beccaria and Vassali as merely electrical sparks. When the inflammable nature of the gases became known, Lavosier and Volta supposed an accumulation of hydrogen in the higher regions of the atmosphere, because of its inferior density, giving rise by ignition to the meteoric exhibitions. While these theories of the older philosophers have been shown to be untenable, there is still great obscurity resting upon the question, though we have reason to refer the phenomena to a cause exterior to the bounds of our atmosphere. Upon this ground, the subject assumes a strictly astronomical aspect, and claims a place in a treatise on the economy of the solar system.

.....

“I don’t know as I will,” said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

.....