Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 09.djvu/63

Rh June 3, and at about midday June 4, respectively. Let us summarize them by quotation: June 2 (p. 84): "The sun sunk and the world was wreathed in shadows. But not for long, for see, in the east there is a glow, then a bent edge of silver light, and at last the full bow of the crescent moon peeps above the plain."

June 3 (p. 97) : "About 10 the full moon came up in splendor."

June 4 (p. 112): "I glanced up at the sun and to my intense joy saw that we had made no mistake. On the edge of its brilliant surface was a faint rim of shadow." Which grows to a total eclipse.

What else ensues I am unable to say. A writer who believes that the new moon can rise in the east soon after sunset and the full •moon at 10 o'clock; who thinks the second of these remarkable phenomena can occur twenty-four hours after the first, and itself be followed some fourteen hours later by an eclipse of the sun — such a man may be a gifted writer, but I am not a gifted reader. I wash my mind of him, and sentence him to the good opinion of his admirers.

Another sinner on my list of authors ignorant in respect of the moon's movements and