Because of our education we use words, thinking they are ideas, to dispose of questions, the disposal being in reality simply such an obscuring of perception as prevents us from seeing any longer the difficulty.
But the prominences are rarely large enough to be noticed by the naked eye, while the streamers of the corona, stretching far away in space, like ghostly banners blown out from the black circle of the obscuring moon, attract every eye, and to this weird apparition much of the fear inspired by eclipses has been due.