SAY IT WITH ASTERISKS
A vague and terrifying science, astronomy! Only as a subdued though highly decorative lighting effect can I regard the stellar pageant with equanimity.
To be sure I have learned to locate the Dipper and Orion and Cassiopeia’s Chair and a few other popular favorites, but this painful knowledge was acquired solely for its conversational value on summer evenings at week-end, house or yachting parties.
Beyond that, all I know about the science of astronomy could be as accurately demonstrated with the perforations of a colander, held up to the light, as on the most perfect star map in the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the truth must be told, I much prefer Asterisks.
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With a moon and a mariner’s compass and a good road map or chart, the traveler by land or sea can get along very well without the stars, but in the trackless mazes of literature and art, how would the wandering Philistine fare without Asterisks? An anthology or guide of any kind without Asterisks would be as unthinkable as a Dalmatian dog without spots or a red-headed boy without freckles.
Imagine yourself in the city of Berlin with a de-stellated Baedeker. You would make Moses-when-the-light-went-out look like a torchlight procession!
Not that I cite Herr Karl Baedeker as the model of stellar perfection. Too many stars may prove as demoralizing as too many cooks. Even that guide, topographer and friend of the tourist is at times bewildering, if not misleading.