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The Brick Moon, et. al.

by Edward Everett Hale

February, 1999  [Etext #1633]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Brick Moon, et. al., by Hale
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Left {greek}, @ for degree and ^ for
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The Brick Moon
and Other Stories

by EDWARD EVERETT HALE
Short Story Index Reprint Series




Preface


To read these stories again, thirty and more years after
they were written, is to recall many memories, sad or
glad, with which this reader need not be interrupted.
But I have to make sure that they are intelligible to
readers of a generation later than that for which they
were written.

The story of The Brick Moon was begun in my dear
brother Nathan's working-room in Union College,
Schenectady, in the year 1870, when he was professor of
the English language there.  The account of the first
plan of the moon is a sketch, as accurate as was needed,
of the old chat and dreams, plans and jokes, of our
college days, before he left Cambridge in 1838.  As I
learned almost everything I know through his care and
love and help, directly or indirectly, it is a pleasure
to say this here.  The story was published in the
"Atlantic Monthly," in 1870 and 1871.  It was the last
story I wrote for that magazine, before assuming the
charge of "Old and New," a magazine which I edited from
1870 to 1876, and for which I wrote "Ten Times One is
Ten," which has been printed in the third volume of this
series.

Among the kind references to "The Brick Moon" which
I have received from sympathetic friends, I now recall
with the greatest pleasure one sent me by Mr. Asaph Hall,
the distinguished astronomer of the National Observatory.
In sending me the ephemeris of the two moons of Mars,
which he revealed to this world of ours, he wrote, "The
smaller of these moons is the veritable Brick Moon."
That, in the moment of triumph for the greatest
astronomical discovery of a generation, Dr. Hall should
have time or thought to give to my little parable,--this
was praise indeed.

Writing in 1870, I said, as the reader will see on
page 66, that George Orcutt did not tell how he used a
magnifying power of 700.  Nor did I choose to tell then,
hoping that in some fortunate winter I might be able
myself to repeat his process, greatly to the convenience
of astronomers who have not Alvan Clark's resources at
hand, or who have to satisfy themselves with glass lenses
of fifteen inches, or even thirty, in diameter.  But no
such winter has come round to me, and I will now give
Orcutt's invention to the world.  He had unlimited
freezing power.  So have we now, as we had not then.
With this power he made an ice lens, ten feet in
diameter, which was easily rubbed, by the delicate hands
of the careful women around him, to precisely the
surface which he needed.  Let me hope that before next
winter passes some countryman or countrywoman of mine
will have equalled his success, and with an ice lens will
surpass all the successes of the glasses of our time.

The plan of "Crusoe in New York" was made when I was
enjoying the princely hospitality of Henry Whitney
Bellows in New York.  The parsonage in that city
commanded a view of a "lot" not built on, which would
have given for many years a happy home to any disciple of
Mayor Pingree, if a somewhat complicated social order had
permitted.  The story was first published in Frank
Leslie's illustrated paper.  In reading it in 1899, I am
afraid that the readers of a hard, money generation may
not know that "scrip" was in the sixties the name for
small change.

I regard a knowledge of every detail of the original
Robinson Crusoe as well-nigh a necessity in education.
Girls  may occasionally be excused, but never boys.  It
ought to be unnecessary, therefore, to say that some of
the narrative passages of Crusoe in New York are taken,
word for word, from the text of Defoe.  If I do state
this for the benefit of a few unfortunate ladies who are
not familiar with that text, it is because I think no one
among many courteous critics has observed it.

"The Survivor's Story" is one of eight short stories
which were published in the first Christmas number of
"Old and New."

Of the other stories I think no explanation is
needed, but such as was given at the time of their
publication and is reprinted with each of them here.

EDWARD E. HALE.
ROXBURY, July 6, 1899.



CONTENTS



THE BRICK MOON
CRUSOE IN NEW YORK
BREAD ON THE WATERS
THE LOST PALACE
99 LINWOOD STREET
IDEALS
THANKSGIVING AT THE POLLS
THE SURVIVOR'S STORY



THE BRICK MOON

[From the papers of Captain FREDERIC INGHAM.]

I

PREPARATION

I have no sort of objection now to telling the whole
story.  The subscribers, of course, have a right to
know what became of their money.  The astronomers may
as well know all about it, before they announce any
more asteroids with an enormous movement in
declination.  And experimenters on the longitude may as
well know, so that they may act advisedly in attempting
another brick moon or in refusing to do so.

It all began more than thirty years ago, when we were
in college; as most good things begin.  We were studying
in the book which has gray sides and a green back, and is
called "Cambridge Astronomy" because it is translated
from the French.  We came across this business of the
longitude, and, as we talked, in the gloom and glamour of
the old South Middle dining-hall, we had going the usual
number of students' stories about rewards offered by the
Board of Longitude for discoveries in that matter,--
stories, all of which, so far as I know, are lies.  Like
all boys, we had tried our hands at perpetual motion.
For me, I was sure I could square the circle, if they
would give me chalk enough.  But as to this business of
the longitude, it was reserved for Q.[1] to make the
happy hit and to explain it to the rest of us.


[1]  Wherever Q. is referred to in these pages my
brother Nathan is meant.  One of his noms de plume
was Gnat Q. Hale, because G and Q may be silent letters.


I wonder if I can explain it to an unlearned world,
which has not studied the book with gray sides and a
green cambric back.  Let us try.

You know then, dear world