Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450

'They are not Parisians?' inquired Adelaide.

'No, no, mademoiselle. From what the mother said, I picked up quite a little romance concerning them. The husband died two years ago, leaving them a pretty farm, and a comfortable home in Normandie. Lucille was very beautiful. All the neighbours said so, and Mrs Delmont was proud of her child. She could not bear her to become a peasant's wife, and brought her here, hoping that her beauty might secure to her a better fate. The young girl had learned a trade, and with the assistance of that, and the money they had obtained upon selling the farm, they contrived to manage very well during the first year. Lucille made no complaint, and her mother thought she was happy. A Parisian paid her attention, and asked her to become his wife. She refused; but as he appeared rich, the mother would not hear of declining the offer. She encouraged him to visit them as much as possible, and hoped at length to overcome Lucille's dislike to the marriage. One evening, however, as they were all seated together, a young man entered the room. He had been an old lover of Lucille's—a neighbour's son, and an early playmate. She sprang forward eagerly to meet him, and the rich pretender left the place in a fit of jealous anger, and they have not seen him since. Then troubles came, one following another, until at last they fell into the state of destitution in which I found them. André Bernard, who had quarrelled with his parents in order to follow them, could find no work, and every sou that Lucille gained was given to him, to save him, as she said, from ruin or from sin. Last week she sold her hair, to enable him to return home. She had made him promise that he would do so, and to night he is to leave Paris.'

'It is he, then, whom we saw arrested!' exclaimed Adelaide; 'and he will not be able to return home. Oh, let us go to Lucille at once! Do, pray, come with me, Madame d'Héranville!' and turning to her friend, she pleaded so earnestly, and the large tears stood so imploringly in her eyes, that it was impossible to resist. Madame d'Héranville refastened her cloak, and soon afterwards, with Adelaide and M. Lagnier, found herself ascending the steep and dilapidated staircase of the house inhabited by the Delmonts. Adelaide seated herself upon the highest step, to await the arrival of her friend, whose agility in mounting was not quite equal to her own. As she did so, a loud and angry voice was heard proceeding from the apartment to which this staircase led. It was followed by a sound as of a young girl weeping, and then a few low, half-broken sentences were uttered in a voice of heart-broken distress.

'Mother, dear mother,' were the words, 'do not torture me. I am so ill—so wretched, I wish I were dead.'

'Ill! wretched! ungrateful girl!' was the reply. 'And whose fault is it that you are so? Not mine! Blame yourself, if you will, and him, your darling André. What will he do now that you have no more to give? nothing even that you can sell, to supply him with the means of gratifying his extravagance. You will soon see how sincere he is in his affection, and how grateful he feels for all the sacrifices that you have made—sacrifices, Lucille, that you would not have made for me.'

'Mother,' murmured the poor girl in a tone of heart-broken reproach, 'I have given my beauty for him; but I have given my life for you.' Adelaide listened no more. Shocked beyond measure at the misery expressed in the low, earnest voice of Lucille, she knocked at the door of the apartment, and scarcely waiting for permission, lifted the latch and entered hurriedly.

Lucille was seated at a window working, or seeming at least to do so; for her head was bent over a wreath of artificial flowers, through which her emaciated fingers passed with a quick convulsive motion. It needed not, however, a very nice observation to discover that the work progressed but slowly. The very anxiety with which she exerted herself, seemed to impede her movements, and the tears which fell from time to time upon the leaves obscured her sight, and often completely arrested her hand. She did not raise her head as Adelaide entered; too deeply engrossed in her own sadness, she had not heard the opening of the door, or her mother's exclamation of surprise, and Mademoiselle de Varenne was at her side before she was in the least conscious of her presence. Adelaide touched her gently on the arm.

'What is the matter, Lucille?' she asked. 'Tell me: I will do all I can to help you.' At these words the mother interposed, and said softly: 'I am sure, madame, you are very kind to speak so to her. I am afraid you will find her an ungrateful girl; if you had heard her words to me just now—to me, her own mother!'

'I did hear them,' returned Adelaide. 'She said she had given her life for you. What did she mean? What did you mean, Lucille?' she asked, gently addressing the young girl, whose face was buried in her hands.

'Forgive me, mother; I was wrong,' murmured Lucille; 'but I scarcely know what I say sometimes. Mademoiselle,' she continued earnestly, 'I am not ungrateful; but if you knew how all my heart was bound to home, and how miserable I am here, you would pity and forgive me, if I am often angry and impatient.'

'You were never miserable till he came,' retorted the mother; 'and now that he is going, you will be so no more. It will be a happy day for both of us when he leaves Paris.' At this moment heavy steps were heard ascending the stairs; then voices raised as if in anger. Lucille started up; in an instant her pale cheek was suffused with the deepest crimson, her eye flashed, and her whole frame trembled violently. Her mother grasped her by the hand, but she freed herself with a sudden effort, and darting past Madame d'Héranville and the hairdresser, who had entered some time before, she ran out upon the landing. Adelaide followed, and at once perceived the cause of her emotion. André was rapidly ascending the stairs, his countenance pale, and his whole demeanour indicating the agitation of his feelings. He was closely followed by the police-officer, whose voice, as he once more grasped his prisoner, appalled the terrified Lucille. 'You have given us a sharp run,' he exclaimed, 'and once I thought you had got off. You should not have left your hiding-place till dark, young gentleman.' And, heedless of the frantic and agonised gestures of the unhappy youth, he drew him angrily away.

Lucille sprang forward, and taking André's hand in hers, she looked long and earnestly in his face. He read in her eyes the question she did not dare to ask, and replied, as a crimson blush mounted to his forehead: 'I am accused of robbery, Lucille, and many circumstances are against me. I may perhaps be condemned. I came here to tell you of my innocence, and to return you this;' and he placed a gold piece in her hand. It was the money she had given him for his journey—the fruit of the last sacrifice she had made. She scarcely seemed to understand his words, and still looked up inquiringly. 'Lucille,' he continued, 'they are taking me to prison; I cannot go home as I promised; but you will not think me guilty. How could I do what I knew would break your heart?'

She smiled tenderly and trustfully upon him; then letting fall his hand, she pushed him gently away, and whispered: 'Go with him, André. Justice will be done. I am no longer afraid.' Madame d'Héranville and Adelaide at this moment approached, and eagerly related what they had seen, both expressing their conviction of the young man's innocence.

'It is not to me you must speak, ladies,' returned the gendarme, wonderfully softened by their words. 'If you will be so good as to give me your names, and come to-morrow to our office, I have no doubt that your evidence will greatly influence the magistrate in favour of the prisoner.' The ladies gave their names, and promised to attend the court the following morning; and shortly afterwards, they left the house, having by their kind promises reassured the weeping girl, and succeeded in softening her mother's anger towards her. The next day they proceeded early to the court. As Adelaide entered, she looked round for Lucille, and perceived her standing near the dock, her earnest eyes fixed upon the prisoner, and encouraging him from time to time with a look of recognition and a smile. But notwithstanding all her efforts, the smile was a sad one; for her heart was heavy, and the appearance of the magistrate was not calculated to strengthen her hope. André had declared his innocence—his complete ignorance of the contents of the pocket-book his friend had placed in his hand; but his very intimacy with such men operated strongly against him. Both Giraud and his companion were well known to the police as men of bad character, and very disreputable associates. The prisoner's declaration, therefore, had but little effect upon those to whom it was addressed; and the magistrate shook his head doubtfully as he listened. Madame d'Héranville and Adelaide then related what they had seen—describing the young man's listless look as he received the book, and endeavouring to prove, that had André been aware of its contents, his companion need scarcely have made the excuse he did for leaving it with him. At this moment, a slight movement was observed among the crowd, and two men were brought forward, and placed beside André. At their appearance, a scream escaped from Lucille; and, turning to her mother, she pointed them out, while the name of Jules Giraud burst from her lips. Hearing his own name, one of the men looked up, and glanced towards the spot where the young girl stood. His eyes met hers, and a flush overspread his face; then, after a momentary struggle, which depicted itself in the workings of his countenance, he exclaimed: 'Let the boy go: we have injured him enough already. He is innocent.'

'What do you mean?' inquired the magistrate; while a look of heartfelt gratitude from Lucille urged Giraud to proceed.

'André knows nothing of this robbery,' he continued; 'his sole connection with us arises from a promise we gave him, to find him employment in Paris; and all the money he received we took from him under the pretence of doing so. Yesterday morning, we met him for the purpose of again deceiving him, but failed. He had a louis-d'or; but it had been given him by his fiancée, that he might return home, and he was determined to fulfil his promise. I would have taken his last sou; for he'—and the destined forçat ground his teeth—'for he owed me a debt! However,' he continued recklessly, 'it is all over now. I am off for the galleys, that's clear enough; and before starting, I would do something for Lucille.'

'How had the accused harmed you?' asked the magistrate.

Giraud hesitated; but Madame Delmont came forward, and exclaimed: 'I will tell you, monsieur. He wished to marry my daughter himself; and I,' she added, in a tone of deep self-reproach, 'would almost have forced her to consent.'

The same evening, Madame Delmont, André, and Lucille were seated together, conversing upon what had passed, and deliberating as to the best means of accomplishing an immediate return to Normandie, when a gentle tap was heard at the door, and the old hairdresser entered the room. He appeared embarrassed; but at length, with a great effort restraining his emotion, he placed a little packet in Lucille's hand, and exclaimed: 'Here, child, I did not give you half enough for that beautiful hair of yours. Take this, and be sure you say nothing about it to any one, especially to Mademoiselle Adelaide;' and without waiting for one word of thanks, he was about to hurry away, when he was stopped by Mademoiselle de Varenne in person.

'Ah, Monsieur Lagnier,' she merrily exclaimed, 'this is not fair. I hoped to have been the first; and yet I am glad that you forestalled me,' she added, as she looked into the bright glistening eyes of the old hairdresser. 'My father has just arrived in town, Lucille,' she continued, after a short pause, 'and he is interested in you all. He offers André the porter's lodge at the château, and I came here immediately to tell you the good news. It is not very far from your old home, and I am sure you will like it. Do not forget to take with you this poor rose-tree; it looks like you, quite pale for want of air. There! you must not thank me,' she exclaimed, as Madame Delmont, André, and Lucille pressed eagerly forward to express their gratitude: 'it is I, rather, that should thank you. I never knew till now how very happy I might be.'

And as Adelaide de Varenne pronounced these words, a bright smile passed across her face. The old hairdresser gazed admiringly upon her, and doubted for a moment whether the extraordinary loveliness he saw owed any part of its charm to the lock of false hair.

CLOUDS OF LIGHT

In March of the year 1843, a remarkable beam of light shot suddenly out from the evening twilight, trailing itself along the surface of the heavens, beneath the belt stars of Orion. That glimmering beam was the tail of a comet just whisked into our northern skies, as the rapid wanderer skirted their precincts in its journey towards the sun. To the watchful eyes of our latitudes, the unexpected visitant presented an aspect that was coy and modest in the extreme; its head, indeed, was scarcely ever satisfactorily in sight. But it dealt far otherwise with the more favoured climes of the south. At the Cape of Good Hope, it was seen distinctly in full daylight, and almost touching the solar disk; and at night appeared with the brilliancy of a first-class star, with a luminous band flowing out from it to a distance some hundred times longer than the moon's face is wide. Few persons who caught a glimpse of that shining tail, either as it fitfully revealed itself in our heavens, or as it steadily blazed upon the opposite hemisphere of the earth, were led to form adequate notions of the magnificence of the object they were contemplating. No one, unaided by the teaching of science, could have conceived that the streak of light, so readily compressed within the narrow limits of an eye-glance, stretched out 170 millions of miles in length.

The comet comes from regions of unknown remoteness, and rushes, with continually increasing speed, towards our own source of warmth and light—the genial sun. When it has reached within a certain distance of this object, it appears, however, to overshoot the mark of its desire, as if too ardent in the chase, and then sways round with fearful impetus, beginning reluctantly to settle out into space again, and moving with less and less velocity as it goes, until its misty form is once more withdrawn by distance from human sight. When the comet of 1813 swept round the sun in this way, it was so near to the shining surface of the solar orb, that it must have been rushing for the time through a temperature forty-seven thousand times higher than any which the torrid region of the earth ever feels. Such heat would have been twenty-four times more than enough to melt rock-crystal. The overburdened sense experiences a feeling of relief in the mere knowledge, that the comet passed this fiery ordeal as the lightning's flash might have done. In two short hours, it had shifted its place from one side to the other of the solar sphere. In sixty little minutes, it had moved from a region in which the heat was forty thousand times greater than the fiercest burning of the earth's torrid zone, into another, in which the temperature was four times less. The comet might well have a glowing tail as it came from such a realm of fire. Flames that were colder by many hundred times, would make the dull black iron shine with incandescent brightness.

As, however, it is the comet's nature to guard its ornamental appendages with jealous care, it may be conceived that this tail of 170 million miles might prove a somewhat troublesome travelling companion in so rapid a journey. Comets always turn their tails prudentially out of harm's way as they whisk through the neighbourhood of the solar blaze. In whatever direction these bodies may be moving, they are always seen to project their caudal beams directly from the sun. Imagine the case of a rigid straight stick, held by one end in the hand, and brandished round through a half-circle. The outer end of the stick would move through a considerable sweep. If the stick were 170 million miles long, the extent of the sweep would be not less than 500 million miles! Through such a stupendous curve did the comet of 1843 whirl its tail in two little hours as it rounded the solar orb. It is hardly possible to believe, that one and the same material substance could have been subjected to the force of such motion without being shattered into a myriad fragments. Sir John Herschel very beautifully suggests, that the comet's tail, during this wonderful perihelion passage, resembled a negative shadow cast beyond the comet, rather than a substantial body; a momentary impression made upon the luminiferous ether where the solar influence was in temporary obscuration. But this suggestion can only be received as an ingenious and expressive hint; it cannot be taken as an explanation. There is as much difficulty, as will be presently seen, in the way of admitting that comets have shadows of any kind, as there would be in compassing the idea that bodies of enormous length can be whirled round through millions of miles in the minute. The truth is, the comet's tail is yet an unguessed puzzle, and vexes even the wits of the wise. It keeps grave men seated on the horns of a dilemma, so long as their attention is fixed upon its capricious charms.

The comet's tail is always thrown out away from the sun, just as the shadow of an opaque body in the same position would be. But this is not all that can be said of it. It is not only cast away from the sun: it is really cast by the sun—shadow-like, although not of the nature of shadow. It only appears when the comet gets near to the sun's effulgence, and is lost altogether when that body gets far from the great source of mundane light and heat. It is raised from the comet's body, by the power of sunshine, as mist is from damp ground. When Halley's Comet of 1682 approached the fierce ordeal of its perihelion position, the exhalation of its tail was distinctly perceived. First, little jets of light streamed out towards the sun, as if bursting forth elastically under the influence of the scorching blaze; very soon these streams were stopped, and turned backwards by the impulse of some new force, and as they flowed in this fresh direction, became the diverging streaks of the tail. Not only a vapour-forming power, but also a vapour-drifting power, is brought into play in the process of tail formation; and this latter must be some occult agent of considerable interest in a scientific point of view, as well as of considerable importance in a dynamic one, for it is a principle evidently antagonistic to the great prevailing attribute of gravitation, so universally present in matter. The comet's tail is the only substance known that is repelled instead of being attracted by the sun.

The repulsive power to which the development of the comet's tail is due, is one of extraordinary energy. The comet of 1680 shot out its tail through something like 100 million miles in a couple of days. Most probably, much of the matter that is thus thrown off from the cometic nucleus is never collected again, but is dissipated into space, and lost for ever to the comet. The tail of the comet of 1680 was seen in its greatest brilliancy soon before the solar approach; this was, however, an exception to the general rule. Comets nearly always have the finest tails, and present altogether the most beautiful appearance, immediately after they have been in the closest proximity to the sun.

The comet's tail seems, in reality, to be a thin oblong case of vapour, formed out of the cometic substance by the increasing intensity of the sunshine, and enclosing the denser portion of that substance at one end. The diverging streams which it displays upon the sky are merely the retiring edges of the rounded case, where the greatest depth of luminous matter comes into sight. As the comet nears the sun, much of its substance is vaporised for the construction of this envelope; but as it goes off again into remoteness, the vaporous envelope is once more condensed. The tail may then be seen to flow back towards the head, out of which it was originally derived.

But here, again, a difficulty presents itself. The comet's tail is believed by most of the illustrious astronomers of the day, to be the body converted into vapour by solar influence. If it be so, the vaporising process must be a much more subtile one than any that could be performed in our alembics, for the comet's substance is already all vapour before the distillation commences. The faintest stars have been seen shining through the densest parts of comets without the slightest loss of light, although they would have been effectually concealed by a trifling mist extending a few feet from the earth's surface. Most comets appear to have bright centres—nuclei, as they are called; but these nuclei are not solid bodies, for as soon as they are viewed by powerful telescopes, they become as diffused and transparent as the fainter cometic substance. Comets are properly atmospheres without contained spheres; enormous clouds rushing along in space, and bathed with its sunshine, for they have no light excepting sunlight. They become brighter and brighter as they get deeper within the solar glare, and dimmer and paler as they float outwards from the same. The light of the comet only differs from the light of a cloud that is drifted across the cerulean sky of noon, in the fact, that it is reflected from the inside as well as the outside of the vaporous substance. The material illuminated reflects light, and is permeated by light, at once. In this respect it resembles air as much as cloud—the blueness of the sky is the sunlit air seen through the lower and inner strata of itself. In the same way, the whiteness of the comet is sunlit vapour seen through portions of itself. The sunbeams pass as readily through the entire thickness of the cometic substance as they do through our own highly permeable atmosphere.

The belief in the comet's surpassing thinness and lightness is not a mere speculative opinion. It rests upon incontrovertible proof. In 1770, Lexell's Comet passed within six times the moon's distance of the earth, and was considerably retarded in its motion by the terrestrial attraction. If its mass had been of equal amount with the earth's mass, its attraction would have influenced the earth's movement in a like degree in return, and the earth would have been so held back in its orbitual progress in consequence, that the year would have been lengthened to the extent of three hours. The year was not, however, lengthened on that occasion by so much as the least perceptible fraction of a second; hence it can be shewn, that the comet must have been composed of some substance many thousand times lighter than the terrestrial substance. Newton was of opinion, that a few ounces of matter would be sufficient for the construction of the largest comet's tail.

Light as the comet's substance is, it is not, however, light enough to escape the grasp of the sun's gravitating attraction. When the mass of thin vapour is rushing through the obscurity of starlit space, so far from the sun that the solar sphere looks but the brightest of the stellar host, it feels the influence of the solar mass, remote as it is, and is constrained to bend its course towards it. Onwards the thin vapour goes, the sun waxing bigger and bigger with each stage of approach, until at last the little star has become a fiery globe, filling up half the heavens with its vast proportions, and stretching from the horizon to the zenith of the visible concave. The great comet of 1680 came in this way from a region of space where the sun looked but half as wide as the planet Mars in the sky, and where the solar heat was imperceptible, the surrounding temperature being 612 degrees colder than freezing water, into another in which the sun filled up 140 times greater width of the sky than it does with us, and where the heat was some hundred times higher than the temperature of boiling water. It was then only 880,000 miles away from the solar surface, and would have fallen to it in three minutes, in obedience to its attraction, if the impetus of its motion in a different direction had been on the instant destroyed or arrested. But this impetus proved too great for the attraction, light as the material of the moving body was. When the comet has approached comparatively near to the grand source of attraction, the speed of its accelerating motion has become so excessive, that it is able to withstand the augmented solicitation it is subjected to, and move outwards in a more direct course. It goes, however, slower and slower, and curving its journey less and less, until at last its motion in remote obscurity is again so sluggish, that the sun's attraction is once more predominant, and able to recall the truant towards its realms of light. Such is the history of the comet's course.

Thin comet vapours drift through space, sustained by exactly the same influences that uphold dense planetary spheres. They are supported in the void by the combined effects of motion and attraction. Their own impetus strives to carry them one way, while the sun's attraction draws them another, and they are thus constrained to move along paths that are intermediate to the lines of the two impulses. Now, when bodies are driven in this way by two differently acting powers, they must travel along curved lines, if both the driving forces are in continued operation, for a new direction of motion is then impressed on them at each succeeding instant. There are three kinds of curved lines along which bodies thus doubly driven may move: the circular curve, which goes round a central point at an unvarying equal distance, and returns into itself; the elliptical curve, which returns into itself by a route that is drawn out considerably in one direction; and the hyperbolic curve, that never returns into itself at all, but has, on the other hand, a course which sets outwards each way for ever. The parabolic curve, as it is called, is a line partaking of the closeness of the ellipse on the one hand, and the openness of the hyperbola on the other. A parabola is an ellipse passing into a hyperbola; or, in other words, it is a part of an ellipse whose length, compared with its breadth, is too great to be estimated, and is consequently deemed to be endless for all practical purposes.

In most instances, comets move in space, about the sun, in ellipses so very lengthened, that their paths seem to be parabolas as long as the cloudy bodies are visible in the sky. Two of them, Ollier's Comet and Halley's, are known to return into sight after intervals of seventy-four and seventy-six years, during which they have visited portions of space a few hundred millions of miles further than the orbit of Neptune. Six comets travel in elliptical orbits that are never so far from the sun as the planet Neptune, and return into visibility in short periods that never exceed seven or eight years. These interior comets of short period seem to be regular members of our world-system in the strictest sense. Their paths, although more eccentric, are all contained in planes that nearly correspond with the planes of the planetary orbits, and they travel in these paths in the same general direction with their planetary brethren in every case. The planetoid comets of short period are—Encke's, De Vico's, Brorsen's, D'Arrest's, Biela's, and Fage's. The comet of 1843 is half suspected to belong to the group, and to be also a periodic body, revisiting our regions punctually at intervals of twenty-one years.

The comet's motions strikingly illustrate the almost absolute voidness of space. If the thin vapour experienced any resistance while moving, its free passage would be checked, although that resistance was many thousand times less than the one the hand feels when waved in the air. It is found, however, that Encke's Comet does indicate the presence of some such resistance. It goes slower and slower with each return, and contracts the dimensions of its elliptical journey progressively. But it must be remembered, that this is one of the close comets that never gets well out of the solar domain in which our neighbouring planets float. The resisting medium which opposes its journey may be merely an ethereal solar atmosphere surrounding the sun, as our air surrounds the earth, but spreading to distances of millions instead of tens of miles. On the other hand, it must be remembered also that starlight passes through universal space, and is everywhere spread out therein, and that it is hardly possible to think of starlight as an existence without some sort of material reality. Some physicists believe that Encke's Comet, with its retarded motions, will some day fall into the sun; while others fancy that such a consummation can never take place, because successive portions of its substance will be thrown off by the tail-forming process with each perihelion return; so that long before the cometic mass could reach the sun, it will have been altogether dissipated into space, and nothing will be left to accomplish the final state of the fall.

The great peculiarity of cometic paths, as compared with the planetary ones, is, that they consist of ellipses of very much more eccentric proportions; and that, therefore, the bodies moving in them, go alternately to much greater and less distances from the sun than the planets do. It must not be imagined, however, that all comets revolve about the sun even in the most lengthened ellipses. Three at least—the comets of 1723, 1771, and 1818—are known to have moved along hyperbolic paths instead of parabolic or elliptical ones. These comets, therefore, can make but one appearance in our skies. Having once shewn themselves there, and vanished, they are lost to us for ever. They are but stray and chance visitors to the domains of our sun, and refuse to submit themselves, with the more regular members of their fraternity, to the regulation-arrangements of our system, or to appear punctually at the systematic roll-call therein instituted. They are the true free-wanderers of the Infinite, passing from shore to shore of immensity, and presenting themselves, for short and uncertain intervals, to star after star. When they flit through our skies, they shew themselves in all possible positions, and move along all possible directions. They sometimes, however, yield too much to temptation, and have to suffer the penalty of a short imprisonment in consequence. Lexell's Comet, for instance, rushed in its hyperbolic path too near to Jupiter, and was caught in the attraction of its mass, and made to dance attendance on the sun through two successive elliptical revolutions. At the end of the second, the influence that had impounded the comet came, however, into play oppositely, and restored it again to its wandering life and hyperbolic courses. Its cloudy form has not presented itself amongst our stars since 1770, when its visit was thus strangely received by Jupiter.

Twenty-three comets were seen by the naked eye during the sixteenth century, 12 were seen in the seventeenth, 8 in the eighteenth, and 9 in the first half of the nineteenth. This does not, however, give anything like an adequate idea of the number of comets really in existence. When Kepler was asked how many comets he thought there were, he answered: 'As many as there are fishes in the sea.' And modern science seems determined, that the sagacious German shall not be at fault even in this predication. Two or three fresh telescopic comets are now usually found out every year. In 1847, 178 comets were known to be moving in parabolic orbits, and therefore to be in some way permanent connections of our world-system. Lalande has enumerated 700 comets, but Arago believes that not less than 7,000,000 exist, which fall at some time or other within the reach of our sun's influence.

THE SLEEPY LADY

She is easy, good-natured, and compliant about everything but her sleep. On that point she can bear no interference and no stoppages. Unless she had it fully out every day, neither would life be worth having for herself, nor would she allow the life of any other people to be endurable. Sleep is her great gift; her body has been wonderfully constituted to take a great deal of ease. Deprive her of that, and you starve her as effectually as you famish a human being by abstraction of food. Her personal appearance confirms her philosophy; for you can detect not one particle of restlessness about her. All is soft, rounded, and woolly, as if she carried an atmosphere of deafening about with her.

It has been her habit ever since her earliest years. One of the principal anecdotes of her girlish days now remembered in her family is, that her mamma having sent on some exigency to rouse her, she faintly murmured forth, 'Not for kingdoms!' then turned on the other side, and doggedly went to sleep again. There is another story of her having had to rise one morning at half-past seven, in order to attend a friend as bridemaid, when, coming down stairs, and seeing it to be a raw drizzly day, she pronounced her situation to be 'the ne plus ultra of human misery!' She told the young bride (by way of a compliment) that she would not have got up in the middle of the night to be present at the marriage of any other friend on earth. This phrase might seem to most people only a pleasant hyperbole; but I am not quite sure that it was so intended. The fact is, she has seen so little of the world at any other hours than between noon and midnight, that she has a very obscure sense of other periods of daily time. She scarcely knows what morning is. Sunrise is to her as much of a phenomenon as a total eclipse of the sun to any other person. She cannot tell what mankind in general mean by breakfast-time, for she has scarcely ever seen the world so early. And really half-past seven was not very far from the middle of her night.

Her husband, who is a little of a wag, compares her waking-life to the appearance which the sun makes above the horizon on a winter day: only, her morning is about his noon. He says, however, there appears to be no necessary end to her sleep. It is like Decandolle's idea as to the life of a tree: keep up the required conditions, as sap, &c., and the tree will never decay. So, keep up the necessary conditions for her repose, and she continues to sleep. It is always some external accident of a disturbing nature which gets her up. He has sometimes proposed making an attempt so to arrange matters as to test how long she would sleep. But, unfortunately, he cannot provide against the disturbing effect of hunger, so he fears she might not sleep above two nights and a day at the most—a result that would not be worth the trouble of the experiment. She takes all his jokes in good-humour, as indeed she takes everything which does not positively interfere with her favourite indulgence. '"Ah, little she'll reck if ye let her sleep on," ought,' says he, 'to be her motto, being applicable to her in the most trying crises of life, even that of the house burning about her ears.'

He contrasts his life, which is a moderately active one, with hers. 'I went up to my dressing-room, about nine o'clock one evening, to prepare to go to a party, when the sound of heavy breathing from the neighbouring apartment informed me that she had reached the land of forgetfulness. I went out, spent a couple of hours in conversation, had supper, set several new conundrums agoing in life, and made one or two new friends. Then I came home, had my usual rest, rose, and set to work in my business-room, where I drew up an important paper. Still no appearance of the lady. I had breakfast, read the newspaper, and played with the children. One of my new friends called, and made an appointment. Still no appearance of my wife down stairs. At length, about the middle of the day, when I was deep in a new piece of business, she peeped in, with a cold nose and fresh ringlets, to ask a cheque for her house-money—having got down stairs rather more promptly than usual that morning, in order to go out and settle her weekly bills. Thus I had a series of waking transactions last night, another this morning—in fact, a history—while she had been lost in the regions of oblivion. My sleep is rounded by hers, like a small circle within a large one.'

Sometimes he speculates on the ultimate reckoning of their respective lives. 'Mine,' says he, 'will have been so thickened up with doings of all kinds, that it will appear long. I shall seem to have lived all my days. I fear it must be different with yours. So much of it having been passed in entire unconsciousness, you will look back from seventy as most people do from five-and-thirty; and when Death presents his dart, you will feel like one that has been defrauded of a most precious privilege. You will go off in a state of impious discontent, as if you had been shockingly ill-used.' Such is one of his sly plans for rousing her to a sense of the impropriety of her ways; but all such quips and cranks are in vain. Only don't absolutely shake her in her bed before her thirteenth hour of rest, and you may say what you please. It cannot be implied that she is hardened, for no such quality is compatible with her character. But she smiles every joke and every advice aside with such an air of impassible benignity, that you see it is of no use to think of reforming her in this grand particular.

One day not long since it rather seemed as if she was going to turn the tables on her worthy spouse. She had a remarkable dream, in which she thought she heard a lady sing a new song. When she awoke, she remembered the two verses she thought she had heard, and they turned out to be perfectly good sense and good metre, and not intolerable as poetry. Now this was what Coleridge calls a psychological curiosity, for the verses had of course been composed by her in her sleep. There was more in the matter still. In her waking-life, she has a remarkably treacherous memory for poetry, being seldom able to repeat a single verse even of Isaac Watts without a mistake. Here, however, she had carried two entire verses safe and sound out of her sleep into her waking existence. It was therefore a double wonder. She has accordingly got up a theory, that her mind is at its best in her sleep, and is judged of at a disadvantage in its daylight moments. In sleep lies her principal life. Waking is an inferior exceptive kind of existence, into which she is dragged by the base exigencies of the world. She ought to be judged of as she is in her dreams. No saying what she goes through then. Perhaps she is the most active woman in the world in that state. Possibly she says and does the most brilliant things, such as nobody else could say or do in any condition. 'You say you cannot test it, for you cannot follow me into my dream-world. Well, but it may be as I say; and till you can prove the reverse, I hold that I am entitled to the presumption which my dream-song establishes in my favour.' It must be admitted there is some force in this reasoning. All that her husband can in the meantime say on the other side, is just this: 'Granted the activity and the brilliancy of your sleep-life, it does wonderfully little for me or our household concerns. Only give us an hour more of your sweet company in the forenoon, and we shall admit you to be in your sleep as stirring and as clever as you choose to call yourself.' This of course he says very safely, for he well knows that no earthly consideration would induce her to abridge her sleep even by that one hour.

At a visit I lately paid to this good couple, I found them debating these points, the gentleman still refusing to give implicit credence to the theory which the lady had started in her own favour. The controversy was conducted with a great deal of good-humour, and I could not refrain from entering into the discussion. I started, however, a new theory, which I thought might please both parties, and in this object I am happy to say I was successful. 'Here,' said I, 'is a wife remarkable for putting as much good-nature into her six or eight hours of day-life as most women put into twice the time. No one can tell what she is in her sleep: perhaps the veriest termagant on earth. Suppose her sleep could be abridged, might not some of this termagantism overflow into and be diffused over her waking existence? I can well imagine this, and you, my friend, reduced to such straits by it that you might wish she would never waken more. Be content, then, and rather put up with the little ills you have than fly to others that you know not of.'

THE NEW CONVICT ESTABLISHMENT IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

The subject of convict discipline has for several years past excited the attention both of legislators and philanthropists; but the knowledge of the public concerning its details has hitherto been exceedingly meagre. It is not intended in this article to discuss the abstract question of the policy of transportation to the colonies, or of convict discipline there pursued; but merely to give some account of the system adopted at a new settlement in Australia. We will state at once, that our official authority is a Blue Book—one of those huge volumes printed from time to time, by order of parliament, for the edification—or as some facetious folks say, for the mystification—of M.Ps. Having carefully waded through its voluminous pages, we have jotted down the passages that especially struck us, and propose to present the pith and substance of our labour—for it is nothing less—in a condensed and popular form.

Little more than a couple of years ago, it was resolved by government to establish a convict settlement at Fremantle—a small town, as we learn, of some 5000 inhabitants—in Western Australia. The first ship arrived in Swan River on 1st June 1850, with 75 convicts; and in October following, a second came with 100 more. Soldiers, and proper officers to control and conduct the convicts, were on the spot; and a tolerably suitable prison was forthwith extemporised out of a wool-shed or warehouse. It is this kind of temporary and experimental establishment that forms the subject of the published returns to government, which are dated up to February 1851, and include an exceedingly minute and clearly-stated detail of the operations and plans adopted during the six months ending December 31, 1850. Three hundred more convicts—principally from the Portland prison in England—were expected in February 1851, and a grand permanent prison was to be erected, to contain 500 cells.

The convicts at Fremantle are employed in both in-door and out-of-door work, but principally the latter. The artisans—tradesmen they are styled in the Reports—such as blacksmiths, masons, carpenters, tailors, bricklayers, &c., labour at their respective trades; and the labourers, par excellence, toil at road-making and various other works of public utility. The 'daily routine' is as follows:—The first bell is rung at 5 a.m., and the prisoners rise, and neatly fold up their bedding—they sleep in hammocks, we believe, as the documents speak of the beds being 'hung' at night. The second bell rings at 5.15; and they are then mustered in their several wards, and paraded. The third bell rings at 5.55, when they are minutely inspected by the proper officers, and working-parties are detailed and marched off. From this time to 7.55, the prison orderlies are busily engaged in sweeping the wards, and making preparations for breakfast. At 7.55, the bell rings, and the convicts muster, and go into breakfast. One of the prisoners is selected to say grace, and the breakfast is eaten in perfect silence. At 8.25, they leave the mess-room, and are then 'allowed to smoke in the square before the prison door till 8.45, when they must muster inside for prayers.' At 9 o'clock, the bell rings for work, and the parties are inspected and marched off. At 12 o'clock, the dinner-bell rings; but parties working at a considerable distance from the prison, are allowed to leave off work a quarter or half an hour earlier, according to the distance they have to walk to the prison. When grace after dinner—for which meal one hour seems to be allowed—is said, they are again permitted to assemble outside from 1 p.m., till resuming work. At 1.55, the 'warning-bell' rings, and the working-parties are again formed. At 2 o'clock, the bell rings, and off they march, and continue working till 6 o'clock, when they are all paraded, wash themselves, and muster for supper. At 6.15 rings the supper-bell; and after supper they are 'allowed outside' from 6.45 till 7.30, when the chaplain reads prayers. At 8 o'clock, the beds are hung, and the convicts are sent into them immediately; and the most perfect quiet is enforced till the morning.

The 'rules and regulations' to be observed by the officers of the establishment and the prisoners are very strict and minute; and, on the whole, appear to be exceedingly judicious. As a fair specimen of the sound and humane spirit that seems to pervade the regulations in question, we will only quote No. 2 of the 'General Rules'—as follows:—'It is the duty of all officers to treat the prisoners with kindness and humanity, and to listen patiently to and report their complaints or grievances, being firm at the same time in maintaining order and discipline, and enforcing complete observance of the rules and regulations of the establishment. The great object of reclaiming the prisoner should always be kept in view by every officer in the prison; and they should strive to acquire a moral influence over the prisoners, by performing their duties conscientiously, but without harshness. They should especially try to raise the prisoners' minds to a proper feeling of moral obligation, by the example of their own uniform regard to truth and integrity, even in the smallest matters. Such conduct will, in most cases, excite the respect and confidence of the prisoners, and will make the duties of the officers more satisfactory to themselves and to the public.'

With respect to the degree of communication permitted between the convicts and their friends, it is stated that a prisoner is allowed to write, or to receive a letter, once every three months; but the chaplain or the overseer reads all letters either received or sent; and if the contents appear objectionable, they are withheld. We are told in the 'Rules for Prisoners,' that no prisoner during the period of his confinement, or employment on public works, has any claim to remuneration of any kind, but that industry and good conduct are rewarded by a fixed gratuity under certain regulations, depending on the class in which the prisoner is placed; and this gratuity is credited to him at the following general rates: 1st class, 9d. per week; 2d class, 6d.; 3d class, 4d. If any misconduct themselves, they forfeit all advantages, or are subject to the minor punishment of being placed in a lower class, &c. A prisoner, by particularly good behaviour, will be eligible to receive 3d. to 6d. per week in addition to the above rates. The amounts thus credited 'will be advanced to the prisoner under certain restrictions, or otherwise applied for his benefit, as may be considered desirable.'