like the moon around the sun

New NASA video shows the

"cosmic pirouette of Earth and our moon"

which naturally reminds me of
the unforgettable cosmic fairy dance in May 1853 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

Methinks I see a "high hall," whose lights might shame the day; the many white-robed fair,—the far-reaching couples, floating in that fairy dance,—revolving, like the moon around the sun, in circling circles.

But that dance of moon earth and sun has to be animated, maybe not so satisfyingly as in the prose-poetry of our wandering dragoon, on the prairie.

theorists and their popularity

Orville Dewey (1794-1882)
Unitarian minister, lecturer on "The Problem of Human Destiny"

"The mass of Mardians do not believe because they know, but because they know not. And they are as ready to receive one thing as another, if it comes from a canonical source…. I sometimes fancy, that our theorists divert themselves with the greediness of Mardians to believe.” (Mardi)

C.  "But even science is at fault—philosophy at a discount. The public mind is occupied with the theorism of demagogues and infidels, who, abandoning themselves to licentious speculations on human destiny, attract multitudes of fanatical followers, whose minds they bewilder, and whose morals they debase." (June 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

astronomy from the plains

Has it never occurred to you, Friend, that we ought to be astronomers?—the science came from desert plains.

Friend.  Yes, and botanists too; I think no one can be on the prairies without observing much, the motions of the stars.
(Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

"Then, to study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains."  (White-Jacket)

That the starry vault shall surcharge the heart with all rapturous marvelings, is only because we ourselves are greater miracles, and superber trophies than all the stars in universal space. Wonder interlocks with wonder; and then the confounding feeling comes. No cause have we to fancy, that a horse, a dog, a fowl, ever stand transfixed beneath yon skyey load of majesty. But our soul's arches underfit into its; and so, prevent the upper arch from falling on us with unsustainable inscrutableness. "Explain ye my deeper mystery," said the shepherd Chaldean king, smiting his breast, lying on his back upon the plain; "and then, I will bestow all my wonderings upon ye, ye stately stars!"  (Pierre)