To begin then:  a deep and solid stone foundation is laid in the earth, and a massive pier of masonry is built up on it.  A heavy block of granite forms the summit of this pier, and on this block rests the equatorial telescope.  Around this structure a circular tower is built, with two or more floors which come close up to the pier, but do not touch it at any point.  It is crowned with a hemispherical dome, which, I may remark, half realizes the idea of my egg-shell studio.  This dome is cleft from its base to its summit by a narrow, ribbon-like opening, through which is seen the naked sky.  It revolves on cannon-balls, so easily that a single hand can move it, and thus the opening may be turned towards any point of the compass.  As the telescope can be raised or depressed so as to be directed to any elevation from the horizon to the zenith, and turned around the entire circle with the dome, it can be pointed to any part of the heavens.  But as the star or other celestial object is always apparently moving, in consequence of the real rotatory movement of the earth, the telescope is made to follow it automatically by an ingenious clock-work arrangement.  No place, short of the temple of the living God, can be more solemn.  The jars of the restless life around it do not disturb the serene intelligence of the half-reasoning apparatus.  Nothing can stir the massive pier but the shocks that shake the solid earth itself.  When an earthquake thrills the planet, the massive turret shudders with the shuddering rocks on which it rests, but it pays no heed to the wildest tempest, and while the heavens are convulsed and shut from the eye of the far-seeing instrument it waits without a tremor for the blue sky to come back.  It is the type of the true and steadfast man of the Roman poet, whose soul remains unmoved while the firmament cracks and tumbles about him.  It is the material image of the Christian; his heart resting on the Rock of Ages, his eye fixed on the brighter world above.

I did not say all this while we were looking round among these wonders, quite new to many of us.  People don’t talk in straight-off sentences like that.  They stumble and stop, or get interrupted, change a word, begin again, miss connections of verbs and nouns, and so on, till they blunder out their meaning.  But I did let fall a word or two, showing the impression the celestial laboratory produced upon me.  I rather think I must own to the “Rock of Ages” comparison.  Thereupon the “Man of Letters,” so called, took his pipe from his mouth, and said that he did n’t go in “for sentiment and that sort of thing.  Gush was played out.”