As Planets do the Sun, we orbit 'round God according to Laws as
elegant as Kepler's. God is as sensible to us, as a Sun to a Planet.
Tho' we do not see Him, yet we know where in our Orbits we
run,— when we are closer, when more distant,— when in His
light and when in shadow of our own making We feel as com?
ponents of Gravity His Love, His Need, whatever it be that keeps
us circling. Surely if a Planet be a living Creature, then it knows,
by something even more wondrous than Human Sight, where its
Sun shines, however far it lie.
- Revd Wicks Cherrycoke, Unpublished Sermons
"Show us upon the Orrery," suggests Pliny.
"I get to light the Sun," cries Pitt, dashing for the card-table, where the Tapers are kept in a drawer.
Tenebras finds herself, in the general convergence upon the Machine in the corner, quite close to her Cousin Ethelmer, who is trying to remember how old she is. He cannot recall her looking quite this,— he supposes, nubile. And how old does it make him, then? Briefly he beholds the gray edge of a cloud of despair, promises himself to think about it later, smiles, and sallies, "Remember the time you snipp'd off a lock of your hair, and we fashion'd it into a Comet, and placed it in the Orrery?”
"That grew back a long time ago, Cousin."
"When you were quite a bit shorter, as well. I almost had to sit down to kiss you hello. Yet now,— um, that is,—
"Dangerous territory, Sir."
"How so? an innocent peck upon the cheek of a child?"
"Had you thought to inquire of the Child," Tenebra;'s chin rising slowly, "you might have found your education further'd in ways unexpected, Thelmer." Ethelmer for a split second is gazing straight up into her nos?trils, one of which now flares into pink illumination as Pitt's Taper sets alight the central Lanthorn of the Orrery, representing the Sun. The other Planets wait, all but humming, taut within their spidery Linkages back to the Crank-Shaft and the Crank, held in the didactic Grasp of the Revd Cherrycoke. The Twins, push'd to the back, content themselves with the movements of the outermost Planets, Saturn and the new "Georgian," but three years old. Dr. Nessel, the renown'd German Engineer, last spring show'd up unexpectedly in Philadelphia, having travers'd the Sea under wartime conditions, to add free of charge the new Planet to the numerous Orreries he had built in America. In each Apparatus, he fashion'd the Planet a little differently. By the time he got to Philadelphia, he was apply?ing to the miniature greenish-blue globes Mappemondes of some intricacy, as if there were being reveal'd to him, one Orrery at a time, a World with a History even longer than our own, a recognizable Creator, Oceans that had to be cross'd, lands that had to be fought over, other Species to be con-quer'd. The children have since pass'd many an hour, Lenses in hand, gaz?ing upon this new World, and becoming easy with it. They have imagin'd and partly compos'd a Book, History of the New Planet, the Twins provid?ing the Wars, and Brae the scientifick Inventions and Useful Crafts.
"Here then," the Revd having smoothly crank'd Venus, Earth, and the Sun into proper alignment, "— as seen from the Earth, Venus,— here,— was to pass across the Disk of the Sun. Seen from Cape Town, five and a half hours, more or less, Limb to Limb. What Observers must determine are the exact Times this Passage begins and ends. From a great many such Observations 'round the world, and especially those widely sepa?rated north and south, might be reckon'd the value of the Solar Parallax."
"What's that?" Pitt and Pliny want to know.
"The size of the Earth, in seconds of Arc, as seen by an observer upon the surface of the Sun."
"Don't his feet get blister'd?" hollers Pitt, with his brother goading him on, "— isn't he too busy hopping about? and what of his Telescope, won't it melt?"
"All of these and more," replies the Revd, "making it super-remarkable, that thro' the magick of Celestial Trigonometry,— to which you could certainly be applying yourselves,— such measurements may yet be taken,— as if the Telescope, in mysterious Wise, were transport?ing us safely thro' all the dangers of the awesome Gulf of Sky, out to the Object we wish to examine."
"A Vector of Desire."
"Thankee, DePugh, the phrase exact." DePugh is the son of Ives LeSpark, like Ethelmer home on a Visit from School, in this case from Cambridge,— traveling the Atlantick to and fro by Falmouth Packet as easily as taking the Machine to New Castle. He has shown an early aptitude with Figures. God be merciful to him, silently requests the Revd.
Somebody somewhere in the World, watching the Planet go dark against the Sun,— dark, mad, mortal, the Goddess in quite another Aspect indeed,— cannot help blurting, exactly at The Moment, from Sappho's Fragment 95, seeming to wreck thereby the Ob,—
"0 Hesperus,— you bring back all that the bright day scatter'd,— you bring in the sheep, and the goat,— you bring the Child back to her mother."
"Thank you for sharing that with us...recalling that this is Sun-Rise, Dear, -Rise, not sun-Set."
"Come! She's not yet detach'd!"
"Let us see. Well, will you look at that." A sort of long black Fila?ment yet connects her to the Limb of the Sun, tho' she be moved well onto its Face, much like an Ink-Drop about to fall from the Quill of a forgetful Scribbler,— sidewise, of course,— "Quick! someone, secure the Time,— This, or odd behavior like it, is going on all over the World all day long that fifth and sixth of June, in Latin, in Chinese, in Polish, in Silence,— upon Roof-Tops and Mountain Peaks, out of Bed-chamber windows, close together in the naked sunlight whilst the Wife minds the Beats of the Clock,— thro' Gregorians and Newtonians, achromatick and rainbow-smear'd, brand-new Reflectors made for the occasion, and ancient Refractors of preposterous French focal lengths,— Observers lie, they sit, they kneel,— and witness something in the Sky. Among those attending Snouts Earth-wide, the moment of first contact produces a col?lective brain-pang, as if for something lost and already unclaimable,— after the Years of preparation, the long and at best queasy voyaging, the Station arriv'd at, the Latitude and Longitude well secur'd,— the Week of the Transit,— the Day,— the Hour,— the Minute,— and at last 'tis, "Eh? where am I?"
Astronomers will seek to record four Instants of perfect Tangency between Venus's Disk, and the Sun's. Two are at Ingress,— External Con?tact, at the first touch from outside the Sun's Limb, and then Internal Con?tact, at the instant the small black Disk finally detaches from the inner Circumference of the great yellow one, Venus now standing alone against the Face of the Sun. The other two come at Egress,— this time, first Inter?nal, then external Contact. And then Eight more years till the next, and for this Generation last, Opportunity,— as if the Creation's Dark Engineer had purposedly arrang'd the Intervals thus, to provoke a certain Instruc?tion, upon the limits to human grandeur impos'd by Mortality.
The Sky remains clouded up till the day of the Transit, Friday the fifth of June. Both the Zeemanns and the Vrooms speed about in unaccus-tom'd Bustle, compar'd to the Astronomers, who seem unnaturally calm.
"Dutch Ado about nothing," Mason remarks.
Dixon agrees. "And they're usually so stolid, too...?"
Els comes skidding across the floor in her Stocking Feet, heading for the Kitchen with an Apron's load of Potatoes. "Nothing to worry about!" she cries, " 'twill clear up in plenty of time!" Even Cornelius is up on the Roof, scanning the Mists with a nautical Spy-Glass, reporting upon hopeful winds and bright patches. " 'Tis ever like this before a Cloudless Day," he assures them. The Slaves speak inaudibly, and are seen to gaze toward the Mountains. They have never observ'd their owners behaving like this. They begin to smile, tentatively but directly, at Mason and Dixon.
Of whom one is insomniac, and one is not. Afterward, none in the Household will be able to agree which was which. Drops of what proves to be ketjap in the pantry suggest Dixon as the sleepless one, whilst a Wine-Glass abandon'd upon a chicken-Battery indicates Mason. The Rattle-Watch make a point of coming by ev'ry hour and in front of Zeemanns' singing out the Time of Night, adding, "And all's clouded over yet!"
Somehow, ev'ryone is awake at first Light. "The Sun ascended in a thick haze, and immediately entered a dark cloud," as Mason and Dixon will report later in the Philosophical Transactions. Clock-time is o Hours, 12 Minutes, o Seconds. Twenty-three minutes later, they have their first sight of Venus. Each lies with his Eye clapp'd to the Snout of an identical two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian Reflector made by Mr. Short, with Darkening-Nozzles by Mr. Bird.
"Quite a Tremor," Mason grumbles. "They'll have to ascend a bit more in the Sky. And here comes this damn'd Haze again."
Upon first making out the Planet, Dixon becomes as a Sinner con?verted. "Eeh! God in his Glory!"
"Steady," advises Mason, in a vex'd tone.
Dixon remembers the Tale Emerson lov'd to tell, of Galileo before the Cardinals, creaking to his feet after being forc'd to recant, muttering, "Nonetheless, it moves." Watch, patiently as before the Minute-Hand of
a Clock, become still enough, and 'twould all begin to move.... This,
Dixon understands, is what Galileo was risking so much for,— this majestick Dawn Heresy. " 'Twas seeing not only our Creator about his Work," he tells Mason later, "but Newton and Kepler, too, confirm'd in theirs. The Arrival, perfectly as calculated, the three bodies sliding into a single Line...Eeh, it put me in a Daze for fair." Whatever the cause, the times he records are two to four seconds ahead of Mason's.
"With all the other Corrections to make, now must we also introduce another, for observational impatience," supposes Mason,— "styling it 'Leonation,' perhaps,— "As well might we correct for 'Tauricity,' " replies Dixon, "or Delays owing to Caution inflexible."
The girls have also been observers of the Transit, having cajol'd a Sailor of their Acquaintance into lending them a nautickal Spy-Glass, and smoak'd with Sheep-tallow Candles their own Darkening-Lenses,— tak?ing turns at the Glass, even allowing their Parents a Peep now and then,— Jet breathing, "She's really there," Greet adding, "Right on time, too!" and Els,— hum,— we may imagine what Els was up to, and what transpir'd just as the last of the Black Filament, holding the Planet to the Inner Limb of the Sun, gave way, and she dropp'd, at last, full onto that mottl'd bright Disk, dimm'd by the Lenses to a fierce Moon, that Eyes might bear.
As before the Transit the month ............