John Smith. But from his correspondent
in the Great Bear this address would be still incomplete; they cannot
see our earth from there, and even the sun himself only looks like a
small star--like one, in fact, of thousands of stars elsewhere.
However, each star can be distinguished, and our sun may, for
instance, be recognized from the Great Bear by some designation. We
shall add the line "Near the Sun," and then I think that from this
constellation, or from any of the other stars around us, the address
of Mr. John Smith may be regarded as complete. But Mr. Smith's
correspondence may be still wider. He may have an agent living in the
cluster of Perseus or on some other objects still fainter and more
distant; then "Near the Sun" is utterly inadequate as a concluding
line to the address, for the sun, if it can be seen at all from
thence, will be only of the significance of an excessively minute
star, no more to be designated by a special name than are each of the
several leaves on the trees of a forest. What this distant
correspondent will be acquainted with is not the earth or the sun but
only the cluster of stars among which the sun is but a unit.
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