“Meanwhile the disturbance occasioned not simply in the outer planets but in our own Earth would have become very alarming indeed. The seasons would have been already greatly changed, and the year itself lengthened, and all these changes fraught with danger to everything upon the Earth’s face would momentarily grow worse. In one hundred and forty-five days from the time it passed the distance of Jupiter it would reach the distance of the Earth. Coming from Vega, it would not hit the Earth or any of the outer planets, as the Sun’s way is inclined to the planetary planes by some sixty degrees, but the effects would be none the less marked for that. Day and night alone of our astronomic relations would remain. It would be like going mad and yet remaining conscious of the fact. Instead of following the Sun we should now in whole or part, according to the direction of its approach, obey the stranger. For nineteen more days this frightful chaos would continue; as like some comet glorified a thousand fold the tramp dropped silently upon the Sun. Toward the close of the nineteenth day the catastrophe would occur, and almost in merciful deliverance from the already chaotic cataclysm and the yet greater horror of its contemplation, we should know no more.”[31]
CHAPTER XVI
INTERLUDES
Naturally Percival’s observations of Mars, and still more the conclusions he drew from them, provoked widespread attention among astronomers, some of whom were convinced, while some withheld judgment and others were very frankly disbelievers. This did not amaze him, for he felt that new ideas made their way slowly, and had always done so. He met objections, argued his case and expected ultimate acceptance of his views. Perhaps not less naturally the popular interest was also great. Newspapers as well as periodicals all over America, in England, France, Germany and other countries, published and discussed his views, especially, of course, on the existence of intelligent beings on Mars and their artificial canals upon its surface. Marconi was reported as saying that within a few years we should be in wireless communication with them.
Meanwhile his life had been going on at the usual furious pace; lecturing here and there; writing for scientific journals, mostly, but not wholly, on planets, satellites etc.; managing his own property and his father’s estate; keeping in constant touch with his computers in Boston and his observers at Flagstaff, worrying over the health of one of them whom he urges to take a vacation and recruit; and also standing his watch as observer himself. A watch it was, “Jupiter before dinner and Mars at 4 A.M.” There was also a large correspondence with astronomers and others who were interested in his work. To one of the latter he writes on December 14, 1907: “In answer to your note of Dec. 5, which has been forwarded to me here, I beg to say that the best and final education must always be given by one’s self.”
Although the canals had already been photographed, he was not yet free from the doubters of the actuality of his observations, for on May 15th of that year we find him writing to Professor Simon Newcomb—then at the height of his great reputation who had suggested that the comparative continuity of the canals was an optical illusion, a long letter giving the reasons for believing that this could not be so, but that they must be as observed.[32] The proof of this he was seeking to make more clear, and in this same year he sent Dr. Slipher, with Professor Todd of Amherst College, on an expedition to the Andes to take more photographs of Mars, which appeared in the Century for December.
But it was not all work. The hospitality of the Observatory was kept up; visiting astronomers and friends lent a gayety to the place. Mr. George Agassiz, for example, long his friend in many labors, was there for many months in 1907 and 1909, helping greatly in his observations;[33] the late Professor Edward S. Morse at sundry times, and Professor Robert W. Willson in 1909 and 1914. He was also in kindly relations with his neighbors, who were “courteous enough to ask me to talk, and I am deep in addresses.” In fact some of them were constantly urging him to stand for Senator from the State. He was interested also in children, and in March, 1908, he is sending word to Dr. Slipher about a little girl from Texas eight years old who is to pass through Flagstaff, and asks permission to look through his big telescope as she “just loves astronomy.” He was fond of telling about his meeting a negro tending chickens to whom he suggested keeping a watch on them the next day because they would go to roost about eleven o’clock; and they did, for there was an eclipse of the sun. Some days later he met the negro again, who expressed astonishment at his knowing in advance that the chickens would go to roost, and asked if he had known it a week before. Yes, he had known it then. “Did you know it a month before?” “Yes, I knew it a month before.” “Did you know it a year before?” “Yes, I knew it a year before.” “But those chickens weren’t born then!” Had he lived to the present day he might have discovered a resemblance to some tendencies in ideas about the present depression.
Nor were his thoughts confined to this country, for in August, 1905, he writes to a friend: “I go to Japan this autumn, but how and when I have not yet decided.” His old interest remained, and in April 1908, he arranged an exhibition in Boston by a Shinto priest of walking over hot coals and up a ladder of sword blades. “The place,” he says, “was full and the audience gratified at being asked. While in the distance people outside the pale stood on carts and boys even to the tops of far off houses, one perched on the tip of a chimney. Dr. Suga cut himself slightly but not seriously. He did very well considering, though it was not possible of course for a poor lone priest to come up to what he might have done in Japan. The rite was beautifully set forth and the setting of the whole enclosure worthy the most artistic people in the world. Policemen kept out the crowd and stared aghast, and altogether it was a relished function.”
He probably would have been greatly grieved had he been told that he would never revisit the land where he had spent so much of his earlier life and thought; but astronomy was now his dominant occupation, and was constantly presenting new questions to engross his attention and fill his time. Yet in the years when Mars was not in opposition this did not prevent, indeed it rather stimulated, visits to Europe, where he saw his astronomical friends, and lectured on his discoveries; for he was a member of the National Astronomic Societies of France and Germany, had received from the former in 1904 the Janssen medal for his researches on Mars, and in 1907 Mr. Lampland that of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain for the work on the planets. We find him across the ocean in the summer of 1906, lunching with Sir Robert Ball in Cambridge, Deslandres and Flammarion in Paris, and “pegging away” there at his lectures.
Two years later, on June 10, 1908, he married Miss Constance Savage Keith, and they went abroad at the end of the month. When in London they met his first cousin, A. Lawrence Rotch, the meteorologist, who like him had established and directed, at his own expense, an observatory for the study of his subject; in this case on Blue Hill near Boston. Percival wanted to photograph measurable lines to see how they appeared in a camera from the air. So he went up with his cousin in a balloon, and obtained photographs of the paths in Hyde Park which came out very well. His wife also went up with them; and, what with his reputation, the ascent in a balloon and their recent marriage, the event was too much for a reporter to resist; and there appeared in a newspaper an imaginary picture of an astronomer and a bride in a wedding dress taking their honeymoon in the basket of a balloon. They travelled together in England, Switzerland, Germany and France, and she recalls, when he was giving a lecture at the Sorbonne, a sudden exclamation from a Frenchman directly behind her: “Why! He is even clever in French!”
Mrs. Lowell has written an account of the diligence, the enthusiasm, the hardships of Percival and his colleagues, and the spirit of Flagstaff: