And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?"
Art thou a man?--a patriot?--look round;
Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home.

_James Montgomery_.




LESSON XXIX

THE SUN

How far away from us is the sun? Are we to answer just as we think, or
just as we know? On a fine summer day, when we can see him clearly, it
looks as if a short trip in a balloon might take us to his throne in
the sky, yet we know--because the astronomers tell us so--that he is
more than ninety-one millions of miles distant from our earth.

Ninety-one millions of miles! It is not easy even to imagine this
distance; but let us fancy ourselves in an express-train going sixty
miles an hour without making a single stop. At that flying rate we
could travel from the earth to the sun in one hundred and seventy-one
years,--that is, if we had a road to run on and time to spare for the
journey.

Arriving at the palace of the sun, we might then have some idea of his
size. A learned Greek who lived more than two thousand years ago