me feel horribly insignificant,” she added under her breath.
“Even this event cannot dwarf into what may be the proper perspective in star systems the fact that the Germans are again only one leap from Paris,” said Gertrude restlessly.
“I think I would like to have been an astronomer,” said Mr. Meredith dreamily, gazing at the star.
“There must be a strange pleasure in it,” agreed Miss Oliver, “an unearthly pleasure, in more senses than one. I would like to have a few astronomers for my friends.”
“Fancy talking the gossip of the hosts of heaven,” laughed Rilla.
“I wonder if astronomers feel a very deep interest in earthly affairs?’ said the doctor. “Perhaps students of the canals of Mars would not be so keenly sensitive to the significance of a few yards of trenches lost or won on the western front.”
“I have read somewhere,” said Mr. Meredith, “that Ernest Renan wrote one of his books during the siege of Paris in 1870 and ‘enjoyed the writing of it very much.’ I suppose one would call him a philosopher.”
“I have read also,” said Miss Oliver, “that shortly before his death he said that his only regret in dying was that he must die before he had seen what that ‘extremely interesting young man, the German Emperor,’ would do in his life. If Ernest Renan ‘walked’ today and saw what that interesting young man had done to his beloved France, not to speak of the world, I wonder if his mental detachment would be as complete as it was in 1870.”
