There across the northern sky sped the great comet. Come, none ever knew
whence, and speeding none ever knew whither, it reached on that
night--on this fifteenth of October--the summit of its swift, awful,
arching flight. It was now at the greatest of its terrible splendor and
appalling beauty. It was now at the very height of its boundless
influence over the hopes and fears of the superstitious, romantic,
emotional, poetic race which was struggling to people the wilderness. As
it thus burst upon the vision of the three horsemen, each felt its power
in his own way,--the man of faith, the man of science, and the fanciful
boy,--each was differently but deeply moved. The men looked at the comet
as the wise and learned of the earth look at the marvels of another
world. The boy gazed quiveringly, like a harp struck by a powerful hand.
He strove to cast his fancies aside, and to remember what he had heard
before the comet had become visible to this country. He tried vainly to
recall the talk about it--not the idle and foolish superstitions which
Miss Penelope had mentioned, and which all the common people
believed--but the scientific facts so far as they were known.
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