before nightfall we should be drenched in wonders, but still we should have wonder left for the thing my companion, with his scientific training, would no doubt be the first to see. he would glance up, with that proprietary eye of the man who knows his constellations down to the little greek letters. i imagine his exclamation. he would at first doubt his eyes. i should inquire the cause of his consternation, and it would be hard to explain. he would ask me with a certain singularity of manner for “orion,” and i should not find him; for the great bear, and it would have vanished. “where?” i should ask, and “where?” seeking among that scattered starriness, and slowly i should acquire the wonder that possessed him.

then, for the first time, perhaps, we should realise from this unfamiliar heaven that not the world had changed, but ourselves — that we had come into the uttermost deeps of space.