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375
The Book of the Damned
·
Charles Fort
171
Early
in
1910,
a
far
more
important
comet
than
the
anaemic
luminosity
said
to
be
Halley's,
appeared.
It
was
so
brilliant
that
it
was
visible
in
daylight.
The
astronomers
would
have
been
saved
anyway.
If
this
other
comet
did
not
have
the
predicted
orbit--perturbation.
If
you're
going
to
Coney
Island,
and
predict
there'll
be
a
special
kind
of
a
pebble
on
the
beach,
I
don't
see
how
you
can
disgrace
yourself,
if
some
other
pebble
will
do
just
as
well--because
the
feeble
thing
said
to
have
been
seen
in
1910
was
no
more
in
accord
with
the
sensational
descriptions
given
out
by
astronomers
in
advance
than
is
a
pale
pebble
with
a
brick-red
boulder.
I
predict
that
next
Wednesday,
a
large
Chinaman,
in
evening
clothes,
will
cross
Broadway,
at
42nd
Street,
at
9
P.M.
He
doesn't,
but
a
tubercular
Jap
in
a
sailor's
uniform
does
cross
Broadway,
at
35th
Street,
Friday,
at
noon.
Well,
a
Jap
is
a
perturbed
Chinaman,
and
clothes
are
clothes.
I
remember
the
terrifying
predictions
made
by
the
honest
and
credulous
astronomers,
who
must
have
been
themselves
hypnotized,
or
they
could
not
have
hypnotized
the
rest
of
us,
in
1909.
Wills
were
made.
Human
life
might
be
swept
from
this
planet.
In
quasi-existence,
which
is
essentially
Hibernian,
that
would
be
no
reason
why
wills
should
not
be
made.
The
less
excitable
of
us
did
expect
at
least
some
pretty
good
fireworks.
I
have
to
admit
that
it
is
said
that,
in
New
York,
a
light
was
seen
in
the
sky.
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