Dripread - Book

which we search for far and wide, though oft-times it is
lying at our feet.

The summer weather of the mind.

APPALLING DEPTHS OF SPACE.
Distances that Stun the Mind and Baffle Comprehension.

"The stars," though appearing small to us because of their immense
distance, are in reality great and shining suns. If we were to escape
from the earth into space, the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and eventually the
sun would become invisible. Mizar, the middle star in the tail of the
Great Bear, is forty times as heavy as the sun. To the naked eye there
are five or six thousand of these heavenly bodies visible.

Cygni is the nearest star to us in this part of the sky. Alpha Centauri,
in the constellation of Centaur, in the Southern Hemisphere, is the
nearest of all the stars. The sun is off 93,000,000 miles; multiply this
by 200,000, and the result is, roughly speaking, 20,000,000,000,000; and
this is the distance we are from Alpha Centauri. At the speed of an
electric current, 180,000 miles per second, a message to be sent from a
point on the earth's surface would go seven times around the earth in
one second. Let it be supposed that messages were sent off to the
different heavenly bodies. To reach the moon at this rate it would take
about one second. In eight minutes a message would get to the sun, and
allowing for a couple of minutes' delay, one could send a message to the
sun and get an answer all within twenty minutes. But to reach Alpha
Centauri it would take three years; and as this is the nearest of the
stars, what time must it take to get to the others? If, when Wellington
won the battle of Waterloo, in 1815, the news had been telegraphed off
immediately, there are some stars so remote that it would not yet have
reached them. To go a step further, if in 1066 the result of the Norman
Conquest had been wired to some of these stars, the message would still
be on its way.

SENATOR VEST'S EULOGY ON THE DOG.

"Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in this world may turn
against him and become his enemy. His son and daughter that he has
reared with loving care may become ungrateful. Those who are nearest and
dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name,
may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may
lose. It flies away from him when he may need it most. Man's reputation
may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who
are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us
may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its
cloud upon our head. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have
in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that
never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is the dog.

"Gentlemen of the jury, A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and
poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground,
when the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may
be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to
offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the
roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if
he were a prince.

"When all other friends desert, he remains, when riches take wings and
reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the sun in
its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an
outcast into the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks
no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against
danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all
comes and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid
away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their
way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head
between his paws and his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness,
faithful and true even to death."

HEALTH AND BEAUTY

WOULD YOU BE BEAUTIFUL?

In womanly beauty the excellences expected and looked for are faultless
symmetry of form and feature and a complexion varying in hue as the mind
is affected by internal emotion, but with an expression of purity,
gentleness, sensibility, refinement and intelligence.

Moore, the poet, has given expression to his ideal of beauty in the
following lines:

� "This was not the beauty--Oh, nothing like this,
� That to young Nourmahal gave such magic bliss;
� But that loveliness,

The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing / A Manual of Ready Reference