We hear everlastingly of Halley's comet. It came back—maybe. But, unless we look the matter up in contemporaneous records, we hear nothing of—the Leonids, for instance. By the same methods as those by which Halley's comet was predicted, the Leonids were predicted. November, 1898—no Leonids. It was explained. They had been perturbed. They would appear in November, 1899. November, 1899—November, 1900—no Leonids.
My notion of astronomic accuracy:
Who could not be a prize marksman, if only his hits be recorded?
As to Halley's comet, of 1910—everybody now swears he saw it. He has to perjure himself: otherwise he'd be accused of having no interest in great, inspiring things that he's never given any attention to.
Regard this:
That there never is a moment when there is not some comet in the sky. Virtually there is no year in which several new comets are not discovered, so plentiful are they. Luminous fleas on a vast black dog—in popular impressions, there is no realization of the extent to which this solar system is flea-bitten.
If a comet have not the orbit that astronomers have predicted—perturbed. If—like Halley's comet—it be late—even a year late—perturbed. When a train is an hour late, we have small opinion of the predictions of timetables. When a comet's a year late, all we ask is—that it be explained. We hear of the inflation and arrogance of astronomers. My own acceptance is not that they are imposing upon us: that they are requiting us. For many of us priests no longer function to give us seeming rapport with Perfection, Infallibility—the Positive Absolute. Astronomers have stepped forward to fill a vacancy—with quasi-phantomosity—but, in our acceptance, with a higher approximation to substantiality than had the attenuations that preceded them. I should say, myself, that all that we call progress is not so much response to "urge" as it is response to a hiatus—or if you want something to grow somewhere, dig out everything else in its area. So I have to accept that the positive assurances of astronomers are necessary to us, or the blunderings, evasions and disguises of astronomers would never be tolerated: that, given such latitude as they are permitted to take, they could not be very disastrously mistaken. Suppose the comet called Halley's had not appeared—
Early in 1910, a far more important comet than the anæmic luminosity said to be Halley's, appeared. It was so brilliant that it was visible in daylight. The astronomers would have been saved anyway. If this other comet did not have the predicted orbit—perturbation. If you're going to Coney Island, and predict there'll be a special kind of a pebble on the beach, I don't see how you can disgrace yourself, if some other pebble will do just as well—because the feeble thing said to have been seen in 1910 was no more in accord with the sensational descriptions given out by astronomers in advance than is a pale pebble with a brick-red boulder.
I predict that next Wednesday, a large Chinaman, in evening clothes, will cross Broadway, at 42nd Street, at 9 P.M. He doesn't, but a tubercular Jap in a sailor's uniform does cross Broadway, at 35th Street, Friday, at noon. Well, a Jap is a perturbed Chinaman, and clothes are clothes.
I remember the terrifying predictions made by the honest and credulous astronomers, who must have been themselves hypnotized, or they could not have hypnotized the rest of us, in 1909. Wills were made. Human life might be swept from this planet. In quasi-existence, which is essentially Hibernian, that would be no reason why wills should not be made. The less excitable of us did expect at least some pretty good fireworks.