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Believing that the stars were but mere flambeaux, suspended beneath the firmament, and revolving round the earth, for the sole purpose of giving it light and heat; and observing that seven of these, answering to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, had perceptible movements, in relation to the other luminaries, the ancient astronomers designated them as planets or wandering stars.
He maintains the splendor of the various luminaries, and presides over the element of fire. Khsha-thra-vairya, "wealth," has the goods of this world at his disposal, and specially presides over metals, the conventional signs of wealth; he is sometimes identified with the metal which he dispenses. Spenta-Armaiti, "Holy Armaiti," is at once the genius of the Earth, and the goddess of piety.
Peers and peeresses, prosperous City financiers, celebrities of the drama and of the operatic stage, luminaries of the law, diplomats, and rich retired traders who had shed the "tradesman" and blossomed into "gentleman," jostled one another in the rooms and on the stairs. It is surprising how people will rush to the house of a wealthy man.
From the galleries shone two minor luminaries, the queens of England and France, who were always present, "with their ladies richly dressed in jewels, and with many chariots, litters, and hackneys covered with cloth of gold and silver, and emblazoned with their arms."
In any case, as it vanished through the doorway, the shadows so I fancied sought to slip out after it, and, floating in that direction, fanned my face with a breath as of ice, while the flame of the candle flickered the more as though it too were seeking to wrest itself from the candlestick, and go floating upwards to join the band of stars a band of luminaries which it might well have deemed to be of a brilliance as small and as pitiful as its own.
In this respect Thurlow was in good company, for although Coke, who lived before violent pressing became the rule, had given it as his opinion that the king could not lawfully press men to serve him in his wars, the legal luminaries who came after him, and more particularly those of the eighteenth century, differed from him almost to a man.
Therein he fashioned the Earth, the Sky, the Sea, the unwearied Sun, the Moon at the full, and all the bright luminaries which crown the azure firmament: the Pleiades, daughters of Atlas, the Hyades, the mighty Orion, and, turning about to watch Orion, the Bear, which alone of all the stars bathes not in the streams of Oceanus.
The night was somewhat cloudy, but although there was neither moon nor stars, it was much lighter than on some nights when all the minor luminaries are ablaze, or the moon itself is aloft, shining in its first or last quarter, a phenomenon remarked upon by an able Italian scientist in the middle of the last century and by him attributed to some luminous quality that inheres in the clouds themselves.
Below this, again, almost in the middle region, is the sun the leader, governor, and prince of the other luminaries; the soul of the world, which it regulates and illumines; being of such vast size that it pervades and gives light to all places. Then follow Venus and Mercury, which attend, as it were, on the sun.
They were ignorant also of that wonderful property of the magnet or loadstone, which, pointing invariably towards the north, enables the modern mariner to know his precise course, at all times of the day of night, though clouds and thick mists may hide the luminaries of heaven from his observation, which were the only means of direction known to the ancients.
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