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attraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit
into an elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his
attraction wide of its sunward rush, would "describe a curved path"
and perhaps collide with, and certainly pass very close to, our
earth. "Earthquakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves,
floods, and a steady rise in temperature to I know not what
limit"--so prophesied the master mathematician.
And overhead, to carry out his words, lonely and cold and
livid, blazed the star of the coming doom.
To many who stared at it that night until their eyes ached, it
seemed that it was visibly approaching. And that night, too, the
weather changed, and the frost that had gripped all Central Europe
and France and England softened towards a thaw.
But you must not imagine because I have spoken of people
praying through the night and people going aboard ships and people
fleeing toward mountainous country that the whole world was already
in a terror because of the star. As a matter of fact, use and wont
still ruled the world, and save for the talk of idle moments and
the splendour of the night, nine human beings out of ten were still
busy at their common occupations. In all the cities the shops,
save one here and there, opened and closed at their proper hours,
the doctor and the undertaker plied their trades, the workers
gathered in the factories, soldiers drilled, scholars studied,
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