Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/62

48 drawback to the most extravagant anticipations of pleasure and enjoyment, is the fear that the day will be rainy or snowy, or something, and the fact that "to-morrow is so long a-coming."

The greatest marvel about the whole thing is, that Nannie has become quite enthusiastic about it. . .If nonsense will sell at all, I am sure you have here three fipsworth of it.

. . . . I look at the stars and you are brought to mind. Those superb clusters in Perseus which you used to admire in the west are now in the east. Sirius, with his "Dawn of Day" in the telescope, has disappeared, and the glorious Nebulæ of Orion culminate by day; but then there is that exquisite double star in Andromeda, orange and emerald—that, too, is in the east.

. . . I have quite a large corps of observers, and some very good ones. So closely do they observe, that their observations show the instruments to be in different parts of the building. I am now very much engaged with preparations for publishing our first volume of observations. This keeps me stretched, for as a preliminary thereto most tedious investigations of the forms, figures, imperfections, &c. of the instruments are necessary. . . . A glorious privilege is that of labour. . . . An officer is standing idle while I write this.

The National Intelligencer says, in speaking of Maury and his work at this time: "The simple depôt for charts and instruments was transformed into an observatory. Surrounded by such men as Ferguson, Hubbard, Coffin, Keith, Yarnell, Laurence, Beecher, and other faithful workers, whom Maury inspired with his own enthusiasm, he made the Naval Observatory, national in its importance and fame."