edge. No one can have given his life to reading and writing without now and then both sending and receiving letters of this kind; but then this is something quite different from crazy correspondence. It supposes a kind of knowledge, though not a personal knowledge, on each side, and ques tions of this kind, put soberly and with a rational object, have often led to personal acquaintance, and sometimes to personal friendship. And besides these there is a class of inquiries whose very earnestness and simplicity plead for them. It would be hard to refuse to help the ingenuous young student, writing perhaps from beyond the sea or beyond the ocean, who asks in all honesty for some piece of real guidance or information from the man whom he has learned to look up to in his writings. This kind of correspondence is not crazy, and it would be harsh to call it impertinent. It is a tribute, a sign of influence, a proof that he to whom it is addressed has really done what he has wished to do, while the purely crazy correspondence is a sign that he has done so only imperfectly. It would be harsh to thwart one who has really understood something in his honest effort to understand something more.

in general. They write to ask what kind
of looking man the hero of a great battle
may have been, or what kind of weather it
was on the day of the battle itself. This
kind of question certainly shows that some
men must have a very strange notion of
the way in which history is written. They
do not stop to think that, if a man who
writes a minute account of a battle had
any evidence as to the state of the weather
at the time, he would certainly not leave
out so important a part of his picture.
The state of mind of a writer who would
keep back such a fact from the mass of
his readers, but would at the same time
be willing to admit some perfectly unknown
person into his confidence on the subject,
would surely be as crazy as that of any of
his correspondents. Yet such a state of
mind must be taken for granted by the
correspondent who assumes that the author
can and will tell him things privately which
he either could not or would not put in his
book. The truth is that there are many
people who really have not the faintest
notion of the way in which history is
written, who have no idea whatever of the
nature of the materials for history. They
seem to think that the historian writes by
some kind of intuition or divination or in-
spiration. It is something quite new to
them that he has his authorities before
him, and that he can say nothing but what
he finds in his authorities. It never comes
into their heads that, if no contemporary
writer says anything about the weather on
the day of a certain battle, the modern his-
torian has no means of finding out what
the weather was. It seems to his corre-
spondent that he may possibly have for-
gotten to think about the weather, but
that, if his attention is once drawn to the
point, he must be able to say something
about it. A trifle crazier than this are
the people who write to a man who is sup-
posed to be master of one subject to tell
them something about matters which be-
long to some quite different subject. This
is part of the vulgar error that, because a
man knows one thing, he must therefore
know everything else an error which is
not more irrational and much more amia-monly they are both at once; they are
ble than the opposite error of believing crazy, but not so utterly crazy as to absolve
that, because a man knows one thing, he their writers from the charge of imperti-
therefore can know nothing else.
nence. Purely literary work does not call
Now it may ever and anon happen to out very much of this class of correspond-
any real inquirer into a subject, even to ence, but what it does call out is some-
any scholar of the highest order, to wish times of the strangest kind. The " young
to have some point resolved which cannot admirer" in a distant land is sometimes
be so well resolved as by some other balanced by the young enemy, also in a
scholar with whose writings he is familiar, distant land, who is so displeased with the
but of whom he has no personal knowl-author's treatment of an historical charac-

All these different classes naturally sign their names, because all of them, from whatever motives, wish to have answers. But there is another class of correspondents, some of whom may be safely added to the crazy ranks, who, as a rule, would seem not to wish for answers, because their letters are anonymous, with sham signatures or no signatures at all. Sometimes, however, with a strange inconsistency, the writer of an anonymous letter expects an answer, and perhaps complains, perhaps crows triumphantly, if he does not get one. Now it does sometimes happen that an anonymous letter is neither crazy nor impertinent. Real pieces of information, suggestions which are really to the point, are now and then given in anonymous letters. But this is quite exceptional; anonymous letters as a rule are either crazy or impertinent. Most com

the letters which are purely gushing, whether it is with admiration or abuse that they gush over. It betokens a state of mind into which it is hard to enter at all events, it is a thing which it would not enter into our own head to do to sit

ter that he writes to say that he is sharpening a sword wherewith, as soon as he is old enough, he will slay the offender. Almost equally strange in another way is the pertinacity of the man who has got a philological craze, and who, on the strength of it, writes endless letters, with an end-down and write to a man of whom we have less variety of signatures, dated from an endless variety of places, but all of which are proclaimed by the handwriting and style to be the work of the same hand. The craze is the same, but the impertinence becomes a trifle greater, when letters of this kind are addressed, not to the avowed author of a book, but to the supposed author of periodical articles which happen to be displeasing to the owner of the craze. Like all writings of the kind, they do not annoy, though they often amuse, and they always excite a languid curiosity to know what kind of man he can be who has so little to do with his time that he can spend a good deal of it in writing letters which he must see have no kind of effect. The craze remains unheeded; the writer before whom it is so often set remains as unconverted as he was at the beginning. It is most amusing of all when the crazy correspondent, in some lucid moment, tells scholar A. that he is quite hopeless, and that he will for the future write to scholar B. instead. But the first love is still uppermost, and, after a few letters to B., he turns round again to write a second series to A. Of all the queer items which go to make up the revenue of the United Kingdom, surely none is queerer than the income which comes from the postage stamps thus hopelessly wasted by crazy correspondents.

So much for crazy correspondence on matters purely literary. But the depth and mystery of the whole thing increases a thousandfold when the subject of correspondence is not purely literary, but political. Setting aside prime ministers and other great leaders, as too high for us, a man whose name is in the least known cannot stir at all prominently in a political question without at once feeling the result, not only in the swollen size of his letterbag, but in the increased strangeness of its contents. We set aside letters from friends, letters which, though from stran gers, are in any way invited, and letters which, from whatever quarter they come, contain any reasonable information or suggestion. All these are in their measure welcome, even though they may be a little overwhelming in point of number. The really strange thing is the kind of letters which seem to have no practical object,

no knowledge, but whose speech or letter we have just read, simply to tell him how much we admire him, or how much we despise him. The admirer of course will always command a certain sympathy from the admired. The admiration may be a little crazy, and there may be so much of it as to be a distinct bore; still, there is after all a pleasant side to the feeling of being admired by anybody. The real puzzle is the kind of letter which gushes over, not from the sweet fountain, but from the bitter. If the writer's object is to give serious annoyance, he utterly fails; he causes a good deal of amusement, some curiosity, but of real annoyance not a jot." The receiver of such letters has so long been used to every degree of praise and blame that he is not greatly set up by praise or greatly set down by blame, unless they come from mouths which speak with unusual authority. What object does a man propose to himself when he sits down to write to any man, above all to a man of some reputation in the world, to tell him, sometimes in decent sometimes in indecent language, how great a knave or fool he must be, and how much better it would be if he would leave off writing such trash as he does write? Does he suppose that such advice will have the least effect? The letter which contains it bears no name at all, or a name which nobody ever heard of before. Alas for the censor! If his warnings are felt to be of any importance at all, it is simply because they are taken as proof that the blow must have hit hard when it causes the party which it was aimed at to yell so loudly. But a distinct feeling of curiosity is awakened. As a contribution to the philosophy of human nature, one would like to know what kind of people they are who write these things, where they live, how they were brought up, whether they have nothing better to do than to write foolish letters, and what object they expect to compass by writing foolish letters. With what purpose does A. B., whom nobody ever heard of, sit down with the air of a master to lecture C. D., whom most people have heard of? If he wishes to cause some amusement and to awaken some curiosity, he certainly succeeds; but that is all. A good deal both of the curiosity and the amusement

extends to gushing admirers as well as to rected to the possible existence of a planet
gushing enemies. But the position of or planets interior to the orbit of Mercury,
the gushing admirer is more intelligible, by M. Leverrier's announcement that the
as it is certainly more amiable. The gush-motion of the perihelion of this planet was
ing enemy is really so curious a form of
humanity that one half wishes to see him
in the flesh, and to subject him to a process
of mental and moral vivisection.

From Nature.

THE INTRA-MERCURIAL PLANET OR

PLANETS.

THE question of the existence of one or more planetary bodies revolving within the orbit of Mercury is again revived by Weber's observation of a round black spot just within the sun's eastern limb, on the afternoon of April 4 in the present year, which had not been visible on the same morning, and early on the following day had disappeared. The position at 2 3-4m. only from this limb is one where an ordinary spot would not be expected to exhibit a circular outline; and a round black disk, in such a position more especially, must instantly attract the attention of a practised observer. On April 4 clouds unfortunately prevented lengthened observation, and in Weber's notice there is no reference to any perceptible motion during the short time the spot could be watched.

not explained by known causes of perturbation, but that an excess of thirty-eight seconds in the century must be admitted beyond the value derived from theory, to produce an agreement between calculation and observation in the discussion of the long series of observed transits across the sun's disk. The unexplained motion of the line of apsides might, as M. Leverrier remarked, be due to the existence of a single interior planet of a mass which would depend upon its mean distance. With a distance of o17 (period of revolution 25.6 days) the mass would be precisely equal to that of Mercury, and it would vary inversely with the distance. Or it might be due to a group of small planets circulating within the orbit of Mercury.

Having before us the whole of the recorded observations of the presence of suspicious spots upon the sun's disk, we shall soon discover that they hardly admit of explanation on the hypothesis of a single planet, even if we assume a small inclination of the orbit of this planet to the ecliptic, a condition which, while it would greatly extend the transit-limits, must at the same time render the transits so frequent that it is in a high degree improbable the planet could have so long escaped certain detection. Some few of This observation resembles others the observations, as just remarked, we may already upon record, made by persons perhaps refer to comets in transit; it reequally worthy of credit, which it is hardly mains to endeavor to ascertain from obpossible to explain except on the hypoth-servations not thus explained what period esis that one or more planetary bodies or periods will best represent them, with exist with mean distance less than Mer- the view to being warned of the probable cury, the rate of motion, where motion has times of future transits. been detected by the most reliable observers, not being consistent with greater distance from the sun. While it is certain that comets with perihelia within the earth's orbit have transited the solar disk, and notwithstanding such transits may have been more frequent than is generally supposed, the appearance of the spots now in question seems, at least in several of the best authenticated cases, to negative any idea of their being due to the passage of comets across the sun, near their nodes. At the same time there are several instances where the form of the spots would perhaps accord better with the assumption of a cometary transit, unless we can admit that the deviation from circular contour is attributable to an optical cause.

It may be remembered that the attention of astronomers was first seriously di

This subject has engaged the attention of M. Leverrier during the last few weeks, or since he became cognizant of Weber's observation last April, the notification of which was long delayed. It appears that the observations of Stark and Steinheibel, 1820, February 12, Lescarbault, 1859, March 26, and that of Weber, may refer to the same planetary body if the revolution be supposed 28.0077 days; this being the sidereal revolution with respect to the node, the synodical period would be 30°33 days; the corresponding mean distance from the sun is o18, and the maximum elongation ten and one-half degrees. Such a planet would again be in conjunction with the sun on October 2nd or 3rd of the present year; and if Lescarbault's observation affords any approximation to the position of the line of nodes would pass

until the announcement in 1860 of Lescarbault's observation on March 26 in the preceding year, when Mr. Scott, in a communication addressed to the Times, drew attention to his experience in the summer of 1847. It was then discovered that he had not been the only observer of the strange object. Mr. Wray, the wellknown optician, then resident at Whitby,

across the sun's disk, and for this reason | It thus happened that the matter dropped M. Leverrier has directed attention to the importance of a close watch upon the same, during these days, such watch, if possible, to extend to distant meridians, so as to insure pretty continuous observation through the forty-eight hours, Paris time. He has already advised American observatories through Prof. Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and it is to be hoped the chance of making an important had remarked a small circular black discovery at this time, may be made known to observers in the East. It will be seen that the aid of the telegraph is indispensable, in order to secure complete evidence of the existence or non-existence of the hypothetical planet this autumn.

Other observations may be reconciled with a period of similar length, but the planet to which they may be supposed to refer cannot be identical with the above. Thus if Mr. Lummis's sketch of the path of the small round black spot, which he remarked upon the sun at Manchester on the morning of March 20, 1862, is reliable in the hurried and otherwise disadvantageous circumstances under which it was made, the ascending node was almost diametrically opposite to that of Lescarbault's planet, elements which have been attributed to MM. Valz and Rádau, and exhibiting a near agreement in the position of the line of nodes, being certainly erroneous. Again, one of the most interesting observations bearing upon the existence of an intra-Mercurial planet is that made about the end of June or beginning of July 1847 in this country, which can hardly be supposed to refer to either of the objects seen by Lescarbault and Lummis respectively. The exact date of this observation is unfortunately lost beyond

recovery.

spot upon the sun late one afternoon at the end of June or early in July, though he also had, in 1860, lost the exact date. Both these gentlemen have furnished the writer with every other particular of their observations. That they refer to the same object can hardly be doubted. Mr. Wray had it under observation for forty minutes, when the sun sank into a bank of cloud and was not again visible that day. In this interval the spot appeared to have moved about five minutes of arc, and when last perceived was SO near the western. wing of the sun that Mr. Wray believes if the cloud had not interfered, in about ten minutes he would have witnessed the egress. This circular spot, the diameter of which he judged to be about six seconds of arc, was not visible carly on the following morning, though other spots of ordinary form which were present on the disk remained nearly unchanged. Mr. Scott was observing with a refractor of about four and one half inches aperture, Mr. Wray with a fine six-feet Newtonian reflector of equal aperture, which he was employing at the time in a study of the varying aspect of the solar spots. Notwithstanding the unfortunate loss of the date of these observations, such particulars as are available are still of value as certifying the existence of such objects in transit; there is no observation of the kind resting upon more excellent authority.

Mr. B. Scott, the city chamberlain, observing the sun's disk near London, a short time before sunset late in June or on A letter from Prof. Heis, of Münster, one of the first days in July, remarked the author of the " Atlas Calestis Nova," upon it a perfectly circular black disk, and received while closing these remarks, was so confident of the unusual character gives full details respecting Weber's obof the spot that he was on the point of servation. The spot was intensely black, making known his observation through one perfectly round, and smaller than the of the London daily journals on the even-planet Mercury in transit. Prof. Heis ing of the same day, when unfortunately expresses the utmost confidence in this an astronomical friend, under the impres- observation by his friend, who has long sion that an ordinary spot had been ob- been accustomed to examine the solar served, dissuaded Mr. Scott from so doing. | disk.

J. R. HIND.

For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage.

An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELI. & GAY.

Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents.