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Citta Morta." And this might, after And this might, after all, be the greatest love theme, since it comprised all love. Duse said then a wonderful thing. By maternal love she meant a great love that begins by creating out of its own body the body of the child, and then goes on forever creating its own mind and soul in the child's soul and the child's mind. Such love expresses all nature and the process of nature and underlies all life. On account of this theme of maternal love Duse played "La Porta Chiusa," she said. It was not a profound drama, and Praga was a skilful, but slight, dramatist no doubt. But this play possessed the possibility of a great revelation in the mother's love for her son, which was here a sickness, it was true, a weak self-indulgence, but none the less tragic and significant for that.

Mrs. Alving in Ibsen's "Ghosts" she hated. Mrs. Alving was a liar. She had gone on all these years saying to herself that she had shared those debaucheries with her husband for the sake of her child. That need not be true; Mrs. Alving did not have to drink and brutalize herself; her action came from something in herself. She disliked, too, Mrs. Alving's insistent provincialism and lack of taste, largely Ibsen's, perhaps.

In view of the discussions of her lack of make-up or of any effort at youthful appearance in "The Lady from the Sea," what Duse said of that play was interesting. "The Lady from the Sea" she played without regard to age. This woman was a figure, a symbol rather than a real personage. She was something not of any day, but eternal in life; she was, if you like, zoological.

"La Citta Morta," Duse said, in the performance she now gave of it had to

be cut too much; most of the long passages with their magnificent poetry were left out. It had a quality that was somewhat out-of-date now, if you like, but D'Annunzio's was a splendid talent, something beautiful and magnificent brought into the theater. His art was both hot and cold.

Gallerati-Scotti's "Cosi Sia" was not a good play; it was not good work for the stage; she knew that of course, Duse said, without needing to be told so by dramatic critics. The play fell short technically. But in a mechanical age, full of machines and progress, we had had enough of technical proficiency; the war had shown what it all resulted in. We have done thoroughly the well made play and scientific realism. What we need in the theater now is faith, the truth of the life that we have now. In time the theatrical technic for this new life will develop. That was why she played "Cosi Sia"; it had a deep center of living; it was too Catholic, perhaps, in its limitations, but it had faith. Gallerati-Scotti might not be a great dramatist of human life, but he was a believer.

Always after seeing Duse the thought came to me of what we have so often heard mentioned by people in her audiences-the feeling she aroused of defense, the impulse to protect her. This impulse, when you were face to face with her, hearing her talk, you seemed to feel less. She seemed to possess strength for her own ends and a profound vitality. But afterward, the moment you left, there rose in your thoughts a marvelous poignancy, and with it this defense of her. This, I think, was because we had supremely in Duse the sense of that element that we know is life, fragile, poignant, necessary.

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The New Astrology

Planets, Sun-Spots, Weather, Health, and Happiness

BY ELLSWORTH HUNTINGTON

HE ancient alchemists dreamed of transmuting baser metals into

gold. They failed, but their work led to chemistry. The modern chemists have almost accomplished the purpose of the alchemists. They have proved that one metal, radium, is actually transmuted into various others, ending with lead. So far-reaching is this discovery that many workers in the border-land between physics and chemistry believe that all the chemical elements are ultimately composed of the same kinds of ions or electrons. If we knew enough, they say, we might reduce any element to ions and recombine these into other elements according to our choice. Or, by breaking up the atoms, we might release almost infinite supplies of energy. Alchemy, under the guise of radio-activity, is fast becoming a reality; and the reality is more wonderful than the early dream.

Will astrology run the same course? Ancient astrologers sought to read the future in the stars. A few hundred years ago almost every one believed that the Biblical writer was expressing a fact when he said, "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." If If men believed this, it was certainly worth while to study the stars assiduously. The ancient astrologers failed, but their work led to astronomy.

To-day astronomy is harking back to the idea that the heavenly bodies control man's destiny. Here are the steps in this new kind of astrology: man's health, prosperity, achievements, and happiness are greatly influenced by the weather. Not only is this true to-day, but it was true in the past. The glacial period, for example, was one of the most powerful factors in producing the present races of men, with their varying capacities and talents. The weather depends to a considerable degree upon variations in the sun's activity. Sun-spots are the most familiar evidence of solar activity, but there are many others, including prominences, faculæ, flocculi, and electromagnetic disturbances. A considerable number of eminent scientists have concluded that many of the solar variations depend somehow upon the relative positions of the planets. If the planets affect the sun, the stars might do likewise, if they were near enough. Each year the astronomers discover new evidence of the vast amount of matter scattered in space, and of the enormous size, brilliancy, complexity, and activity of some of the stars. Thus there arises a possibility

-as yet it is no more-that the stars in their courses may disturb the atmosphere of the sun and thus bring

about changes in weather and climate, usual amount of money is thrown into and hence in human life.

Let us see how far each step in this chain of reasoning is based on established facts. Every one knows that the weather has an enormous effect on human welfare. A great storm may wreck ships, overthrow houses, shroud cities in snow and ice, and raise huge waves like those which twice overwhelmed Galveston before the seawalls were made. Every year the United States spends hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the damage done by storms to railroads, trolley lines, roads, ships, dams, fences, houses, and almost every kind of structure. A single frost may spoil millions of dollars' worth of fruit; a snowy winter may cause hundreds of thousands of cattle to perish; a five-year drought in Australia, culminating in 1902 and 1903, killed sixty million sheep; and a dry season may create famines (as in China, India, and Russia) wherein scores of millions of people suffer, while hundreds of thousands die.

Even in our own country, according to the experts of the Weather Bureau, a single half-inch of rain throughout the corn-belt at the critical time in July may increase the value of the corn crop by a quarter of a billion dollars. When the climatic conditions are generally favorable all over the country, the farmers may have two or three billion more dollars to spend than in the preceding or following years. The prosperity of the farmer brings prosperity elsewhere. The farmers may spend their extra dollars for automobiles, carpets, pianos, or tools; they may send their boys and girls to college; or possibly they pay old debts, clear off the mortgage, and build new barns. In any event, more than the

circulation; the railroads have heavy freight and passenger traffic; the factories get unusually large orders; and business is stimulated. Every one feels a wave of prosperity, for the weather has helped the farmers.

The effect of the weather goes deeper than mere material prosperity. Man thinks himself superior to weather and climate, but he is influenced by them almost as much and as directly as are the plants and animals of the farmer. For example, the study of the deaths in New York City day by day for eight years shows that when the average temperature for day and night together changes even a single degree from one day to the next, the death-rate is influenced. In ordinary circumstances, if the temperature drops, the deathrate likewise drops; while a rise in temperature, even in winter, is at first accompanied by an increased number of deaths. If the temperature remains either low or high, however, the number of deaths soon rises to a high level; but when the temperature ranges from 60°F to 70°F, the death-rate is almost always low. So sensitive is man's health to the weather that if the worse half of the year could be made as healthful as the better half, the number of deaths in the United States would be reduced at least a tenth, or by about 150,000 each year. Put in another way, this means that the average length of life might be increased five years if we could even partly eliminate the effects of bad weather. Think of the vast sums that the one hundred and ten million people of this country would pay for the assurance that they would live five years longer than is now their allotted span. Yet some such result is what we may

perhaps hope for if ever we learn not only how the weather really influences us, but how to neutralize its bad effects. That would mean that somehow we must at all seasons cause the indoor air in which we live to be as invigorating as is the outdoor air on a fine day in September. It would also demand that we learn just how the weather influences the parasitic organisms that cause disease.

The amount of ill health, the losses by death, and the pain, expense, and disturbance of business due to illness and death vary from year to year almost as much as from season to season. A difference of ten per cent. in the death-rate from one year to another is common, and differences of twenty or thirty per cent. are far from unknown. Such differences appear to arise from the weather more than from any other single source. In the United States a cold, dry, open winter followed by a hot, cloudy, muggy summer may be associated with anywhere from 100,000 to 400,000 more deaths than occur in a mild, but snowy, winter followed by a cool and fairly sunny, but not dry,

summer.

But how about epidemics such as the influenza scourge of 1918? Are not they the chief cause of variations in the death-rate from year to year? And do not they afflict all sorts of regions regardless of weather and climate? No, to both questions. Epidemics do indeed cause the most startling variations in health, but the ordinary variations from year to year are far greater than can be accounted for by epidemics. Moreover, the committee on the atmosphere and man appointed by the National Research Council has found that the severity of the influenza epidemic of 1918 depended to an extraor

dinary degree upon the weather and climate of the various parts of the United States. Two periods are especially important, namely, the three or four weeks immediately preceding the onset of the epidemic, and the two or three weeks when the epidemic is at its height. The weather of the intervening period when the disease is rapidly increasing seems to have almost no effect. Apparently the first thing that counts is the physical condition in which people find themselves as a result of the weather for a few weeks before the infection first reaches a place. Then, when the epidemic arrives, its vigor is such that for three or four weeks it rages regardless of the weather. But soon the atmosphere again asserts its power, and cool, invigorating autumn weather checks the virulence of the influenza and helps to stamp it out more quickly than in places where the temperature is not so favorable.

If the thirty-six large cities in the United States for which full data are available are divided into six groups according to the temperature of the thirty days preceding the first infection in each city and the ten days during the climax of the epidemic, the number of deaths per thousand inhabitants during the ten weeks of the first epidemic is as follows:

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six warmest. Think how the distress, pain, loss, and sorrow of the great epidemic would have been diminished if all of the cities had been as fortunate as were the six which happened to be struck by the epidemic at a time when they were enjoying the invigorating kind of weather which we associate with the first part of the autumn. On the other hand, past experience suggests that if the epidemic had first reached the United States in early February, when the cold weather produces almost its maximum ill effect, this most virulent of epidemics might have been far more destructive than was actually the case. Although the weather alone can neither cause an epidemic nor wholly prevent one, its net effect in determining the severity of an epidemic may be enormous. In this way, as well as in a hundred others, the effect of the weather is far greater than we generally realize.

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Even if we grant the vast effect of the weather on man, what does that prove as to the new astrology? After several decades of debate scientists are not yet agreed as to the effect of the sun, and much less of the planets and stars, upon the weather. Nevertheless, certain fundamental relationships are fast becoming generally recognized. One of these is the fact that the work of such famous men as the American astronomer, Simon Newcomb, and the German climatologist, Köppen, has shown beyond question that during the century for which sufficient records are available the earth's average temperature has been relatively low at times of many sun-spots and high when sunspots are few. The difference is only about 1°F within the tropics and even

less in higher latitudes. At first it was supposed that so small an amount is not important, but it is now recognized that the change in temperature is accompanied by changes in other climatic conditions which have farreaching effects. Moreover, this difference of one degree is perhaps only one tenth and almost certainly more than one twentieth of the amount by which geologists believe the temperature of the last glacial period to have differed from that of to-day. Thus the present temporary change of climatic conditions from sun-spot minima to sun-spot maxima appears to be from a tenth to a twentieth as great as the more permanent change necessary to cause a vast ice-sheet to cover the whole eastern United States as far south as New York and Cincinnati.

Another fundamental conclusion is that, when sun-spots are numerous, storms are also especially numerous and follow somewhat different paths from those followed by the less numerous storms at times of sun-spot minima. This conclusion is not so generally accepted as the one concerning temperature, for the facts that prove it have only recently become available. Nevertheless, it is fast passing out of the realm of discussion into that of established fact. The somewhat erratic changes in the paths and intensity of storms, which are the chief source of error in the predictions of the Weather Bureau, may arise from sudden changes in solar activity. When we learn how to measure the full activity of the sun and know how any particular type of solar activity influences temperature and storminess, we may have gone far toward a system of predicting the weather, even to predict in advance.

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