But, to my disappointment, I found that my new friend, though he was
very kind to me, was not able to answer my questions; he said he did not
know much about the stars, and that it was in the old times, before ships
were steered by the compass, that sailors learned so much from watching
them; though the moon considered in reference to the fixed stars is of very
great importance as enabling them to ascertain their position.
Though it is a long time ago, I can remember how surprised I was when I
first understood that the sun was a star, and that there are other stars
very much like him, but most of them so very far from us that it is not
possible to measure their distance. We do know how far our sun--the Star
of Day, as he is sometimes called--is from us. Perhaps it may help you a
little if I tell you that the astronomers say that if the sun was as far
away from us as the nearest of these stars, he would appear but a point of
light; but I think you will best understand how great the distance is if I
tell you that a train, rushing along at full speed, as you see the express
go by, and never resting, day or night, would take two hundred and ten
years to reach him.
We cannot be surprised that very little is known certainly about a star so
very far off, and yet nearer to us than any of the little points of light
which you see so thickly sown over the sky; but we know that he is a great
globe, like our earth, only twelve hundred thousand times as large--as much
larger, I told the children when we were having our lesson in astronomy, as
May's curly head was larger than the little blue bead which I put upon it.
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