with a feeling akin to awe, the following passage:

Further, some stars exhibit changes of complexion in themselves. Sirius,
as before stated, was once a ruddy, or rather a fiery-faced orb, but has
now forgotten to blush, and looks down upon us with a pure, brilliant
smile, in which there is no trace either of anger or of shame. On the
countenances of others, still more varied traits have rippled, within a
much briefer period of time. May not these be due to some physiological
revolutions, general or convulsive, which are in progress in the
particular orb, and which, by affecting the constitution of its
atmosphere, compel the absorption or promote the transmission of
particular rays? The supposition appears by no means improbable,
especially if we call to mind the hydrogen volcanoes which have been
discovered on the photosphere of the sun. Indeed, there are a few small
stars which afford a spectrum of bright lines instead of dark ones, and
this we know denotes a gaseous or vaporized state of things, from which
it maybe inferred that such orbs are in a different condition from most
of their relations.

And, as if for the very purpose of throwing light upon this interesting
question, an event of the most striking character occurred in the
heavens, almost as soon as the spectroscopists were prepared to
interpret it correctly.

On the 12th of May, 1866, a great conflagration, infinitely larger than
that of London or Moscow, was announced. To use the expression of a
distinguished astronomer, a world was found to be on fire! A star, which
till then had shone weakly and unobtrusively in the corona borealis,
suddenly blazed up into a luminary of the second magnitude. In the
course of three days from its discovery in this new character, by