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CAMILLE FLAMMARION

Urania

Camille Flammarion is one of the most remarkable of modern French scientists. Born on February 25, 1842, he was apprenticed at an early age to an engraver, but, attracted by astronomy, he studied so well that, when a lad of sixteen, he was admitted as a pupil to the Paris Observatory. There is no doubt that the great French mathematician, Le Verrier, regarded Flammarion with a certain disdain as more of a poet than an astronomer; but he soon vindicated, by several important discoveries, his title to be regarded as a man of science. "Urania," which appeared in 1889, is an excellent example of his ability as a thinker, and of his charm as a writer. The work is hardly a novel, though it is far more popular than many books of fiction. It is really an essay in philosophy dealing with the question of the immortality of the soul; and it has an especial interest for English readers owing to the fact that much in it that seems to be pure fantasy is based on researches undertaken by the British Society for Psychical Research. The plot and the characters are of secondary importance; they are only used for the purpose of illustrating certain ideas.

I.--The Muse of Astronomy

I was seventeen years old when I fell in love with Urania. Was she a fair, young, blue-eyed daughter of Eve? No; she was an exquisite statue of the Muse of Astronomy, chiselled by Pradier in the days of the Empire. She stood on the mantelpiece in the study of the famous mathematician, Le Verrier, who directed the Paris Observatory, where I was working. At four o'clock in the afternoon my illustrious chief used to depart, and I would then steal into his room and sit down before Urania and dream of lovelier worlds than ours, hidden in the infinite spaces of the starry sky. Sometimes my friend and companion in studies, Georges Spero, would come and sit beside me; and, inspired by the immortal beauty of Urania, we would let our young and ardent imaginations play over the glories and wonders of the heavens.

"You will be too late for Jupiter," said Le Verrier, entering unexpectedly one evening, and catching me in an attitude of adoration before Urania. "I am afraid you are more of a poet than an astronomer."

The great man of science himself certainly did not love beauty as much as he loved wisdom, for the next day he sold the lovely image of Urania in order to buy an old Chinese astronomical clock. I was almost heartbroken when I entered his room and found that Urania had disappeared. With her had gone the vivifying power of imagination which had transmuted the abstruse calculations on which I was engaged into glimpses of heavenly visions of infinite life. With what wild joy then did I see, when I returned home, Urania shining in all her loveliness on my own mantelpiece. Knowing my love for the beautiful figure of the muse, Georges Spero had bought it back from the watchmaker to whom Le Verrier had sent it, and placed it in my room as a gift.

It was an extraordinary mark of friendship, for Georges loved Urania even more passionately than I did. To him she was the personification of everything in life that lifted man above the level of the brute.

Possessing a nobler and finer intellect than mine, he had thrown himself into the study of the problems of the soul with a fury of passion and a concentration of thought that almost killed him. Are our souls immortal, or do they perish with our bodies? This was the question that tormented him to madness. One night I found him sitting in his room in the Place du Panthéon with a glass of poison in his hand.