"Something is so bright you cannot look at it. The something is not the
body of the sun."
"Then it is the light that comes from it."
"No light comes from it, that I know. I told you, the sun is a dark
body."
"Not laughing?"
"No," said Dr. Sandford, though he did laugh now;--"the sun, you see, is
a more wonderful thing than you imagined."
"But sir, may I ask any question I have a mind to ask?"
"Certainly! All in the course of business."
"How do you know that it is dark, sir?"
"Perfectly fair. Suppose that Mrs. Benoit stood behind your curtain
there, and that you had never seen her; how could you know that she has
a dark skin?"
"Why I could not."
"Yes, you could--if there were rents in the curtain."
"But what are you talking of, sir?"
"Only telling you, in answer to your question, how I know the sun to be
a dark body."
"But there is no curtain over the sun."
"That proves you are no philosopher, Daisy. If you were a philosopher,
you would not be so certain of anything. There is a curtain over the
sun; and there are rents or holes in the curtain sometimes,--so large
that we can see the dark body of the sun through them.
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