Could the Sun approach to where the Moon is, then at any instant great crimson "flames " of hydrogen gas might leap forth and enwrap our little Earth in their fervid embrace. p. 36 UNIV. OF UNIVERSE A LITTLE BOOK ABOUT SUNS AND "It is but the outer hem of God's great mantle our poor stars do gem."-RUSKIN. "O then indeed I knew how closely knit To stars and flowers we are." ALFRED NOYES. LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING 1920 FOREWORD TO NEW EDITION MANY years ago a small volume under this title was published by the S.P.C.K. When a letter came, asking me to revise it for re-issue in an illustrated form, I speedily found that to "revise " meant to "re-write." And re-written it has been during the past few months, with abundant omissions and still more abundant additions. Except possibly here or there in the first few pages, I doubt if a single sentence has kept its old form unaltered. And though in the main I have roughly followed the outlines of my former plan, it has been largely reconstructed, and very many of the chapters are entirely new. I have to express my grateful thanks to Mr. W. H. Wesley, Assistant Secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society; Mr. E. Walter Maunder, F.R.A.S.; Professor H. H. Turner, F.R.S., Director of the University Observatory of Oxford; Professor E. B. Frost, Director of Yerkes Observatory, Wisconsin; Mr. Harlow Shapley, of Mount Wilson Observatory, California, and others, for most kind help given in the work of re-writing, by their ready response to inquiries on my part about difficult questions and new developments. My thanks also are due to several poets of the present day, whose names will be found here and there, as well as to their publishers, for leave kindly granted V |