Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 09.djvu/71

Rh there is less ignorance: at least three in a thousand know that the stars are not the same as the planets, though two of the three are unable to say what is a planet and what is a star.

That immortal ass, "the average man," sees with nothing but his eyes. To him a planet or a star is only a point of light — a bright dot, a golden fly-speck on "the sky." He does not see it as a prodigious globe swimming through the unthinkable depths of space. With only the heavens for company the poor devil is bored. When out alone on a clear night he wants to get himself home to his female and young and — unfailing expedient of intellectual vacuity — go to bed. The glories and splendors of the firmament are no more to him than a primrose was to Peter Bell. Let us leave him snoring pigly in his blankets and turn to other themes, not forgetting that he is our lawful ruler, nor permitted to forget the insupportable effects of his ferocious rule.

1903.