CHAPTER II.

This strange figure entered my cabin, and without introduction or sign of salutation seated himself in my easy chair as though he were a member of my household, an apparent rudeness which will be explained as I proceed. I had now the first opportunity to get a good survey of my visitor. He was a person of surpassing loveliness. His face was of that spiritual kind which is seldom seen off the canvas of some of our art masters, and it reflected a kindness of heart that is never realized except by the purest religious fancy. His form was so high and elaborate in its development, that I have only seen an approach to it in the best models. His singular attractiveness I can only compare to that affinity which comes of pure sexual love, captivating the beholder with a presence which drives away all thought but it. His complexion had that ruddy clearness and transparency indicative of perfect health. The hair of his head and beard,—both long and waving over shoulders and breast,—was of a hue that can be best described as the color of[Pg 85] the ripe filbert, with the fineness and lustre of unwoven silk. His hands, although scrupulously clean and finely shaped, bore the unmistakable signs of manual toil; and yet he had the superior air and manner of one whose mission it was to instruct. As he sat before me I felt like a child in the presence of a loved and loving parent. My impression of him was entirely correct, since his first word of utterance to me was a term of endearment.

“My brother,” said he, “you have a beautiful world. That moon of yours is magnificent.”

To me this was a happy beginning. Here was, thought I, a man after my own heart, whose soul was above the common things of life. I could compare notes with him touching my study of Mars. Providence had then sent me, at last, what I had so wanted,—some one to share and enjoy with me the triumphs of my labor; so I immediately said to him: “As to the moon, it is certainly very serviceable as a night reflector of the sun’s light; but, since its size is comparatively insignificant, and its surface desolate and uninhabited, it is thus an object of very little importance among heavenly bodies. Speaking of magnificent planets, what do you think of Mars?”

[Pg 86]“Mars suits me,” said my visitor.

Thinking my question too general, I inquired: “Do you think Mars inhabited?”

“I am a good proof that it is,” said he. “I left that planet—let me see—by your time, about one hour ago.”

“I either misunderstood you, or you are not serious. It is impossible.”

“Ah, my brother,” said he, “you are very little advanced in a knowledge of the properties of intelligence. I am here by a process as yet unknown to you, and which may be best described in your language as reflection. I am here by reflection. That is to say, my natural body is at my home, on the planet, which you call Mars. Its spiritual counterpart is here. You have already an inkling of this strange faculty of transferring intelligence, in some of the phenomena on which is founded your spiritualistic creed. We, of the planet Mars, have been in the enjoyment of this discovery for centuries; and while you of the Earth are only able by your appliances of science to measure the size of our planet, compute its distance, estimate the shape and extent of its orbit, and indulge in some vague conjectures appertaining to its condition, we have been making a[Pg 87] close and interesting study of your social affairs, including, of course, your morals, politics and religion. You have only measured us as a planet. We have measured you as a people, and at least one of us, as you perceive, has mastered your language. Besides, our development is over ten thousand years ahead of yours. We can tell you more of your history than you know yourselves. At a period of yours described by your writers as the stone age, we had converted electricity into a motor and illuminating agent. I know your thoughts. You are surprised at what I have said, and wish me to tell you something of the planet upon which I reside.

“It will interest you to know that about the equatorial regions of Mars is found its highest civilization and densest settlement. Your torrid zone, and the corresponding section of our planet, are widely different. In ours, the climate is delightfully and evenly temperate. The extent of our surface, as you know, is very much less than yours, but the uniform quality of our land for cultivation, and the smaller water surface, compared with yours, supports a population whose numbers would astonish you. You may as well discharge your mind of the many conjectures which ascribe to each planet a quality[Pg 88] of matter and intelligence peculiar to itself. The whole universe is a unit, as your spectroscope, and the bodies from space that fall from time to time upon your surface, must have suggested to you. Variable states of density and temperature modify the forms and organs of animal and vegetable life, but matter is everywhere the same.

“Your chemists have just arrived at that point of knowledge where ours were forty centuries ago. Yours recognize over sixty forms of matter as simple and elementary, while ours have reduced them all to one,—the unit out of which all creation is formed. From this you may infer that our discovery of the compound nature of the metals enables us to make them at pleasure. This was a most fortunate and timely knowledge for us, since they are distributed very sparsely on our planet. It will no doubt be a strange thing to tell you, that we make gold at a less cost than iron, and that consequently it is the cheapest metal in use. You are about to ask me whether we make diamonds. We have made them for centuries. Our factories turn them out in masses for the ornamental parts of buildings, for which they are remarkably adapted on account of their brilliancy and indestructibility.”[Pg 89]

My strange visitor rested a little here, with the evident intention of reading my thoughts, and of enjoying my surprise. While I was marvelling what great things chemical science must have done in other ways, he appeared to anticipate my question.

“My brother,” said he, “we are indebted to the science of chemistry for more than I can readily enumerate. With us, as with you, a large number of common and abundant substances differ only a trifle in chemical composition from others which are in great demand for the purposes of life. The science of chemistry enables us to convert one into the other at will. Thus, from wood we manufacture sugar, starch, and any number of other useful commodities. By the double decomposition of air and water we generate a heat which, for economy and easy regulation, is better than anything the universe affords. The clumsy, unclean and inconvenient use of wood and coal for fuel is with us a practice of the past.

“But chemistry has done for us an immeasurably greater service. It has enabled us to provide for ourselves a food supply by the process of synthesis, which, in the extremity of crop shortage or failure, we can[Pg 90] resort to as a means of averting famine. You are aware, in your present stage of chemical knowledge, that all food products are composed of four simple ingredients, Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen and Nitrogen, found in abundant supply in the atmosphere and its natural mixture. These, with two or three earthy matters from the soil, are the constituents of all food. We forestall the slow assimilation of these by the organs of animals and plants, and by our chemical skill are enabled to combine them in proper proportion to form the proximate elements of all varieties of food, wanting in nothing but the taste and flavor of the natural supply, and on that account, only used when compelled by necessity.

“Our advance in synthetic chemistry has enabled us to imitate nature’s products in many of their organic forms. Besides those nitrogen compounds which we manufacture as life sustainers, we produce many substances which are equivalent to those you obtain exclusively from animal and vegetable life. We obtain in this way substitutes for leather, horn, ivory, and also fats and oils, albumen, gluten, starch, etc., etc.; most of these better and in more convenient forms for industrial and culinary uses than nature furnishes them. Our textile[Pg 91] fabrics are entirely derived from vegetable growth, and we give them a quality of slow or quick conduction of heat to accord with their purposes of summer or winter wear.

“You may safely infer from what I have said that we slaughter no animals for food or raiment. Such demoralizing cruelty we have never practiced. The ferocious examples of beasts and birds of prey we have never known, and we have no extensive wastes over which they could live and flourish. Our animals which are limited in variety compared with yours are all domesticated, and our treatment of them is so uniformly kind, that instead of avoiding us they court our society. We have a clean and beautiful creature, much smaller than your cow, which gives us milk. It is remarkably intelligent, and is often admitted into our households to nurse our infants, who become very fond of them. Our city parks are provided with these animals and it is a common sight to see them gamboling with children and quietly submitting themselves to their nourishment.

“It is a part of our religion to believe that every living creature is related, though distantly, to ourselves, and to those of them especially which are brought into our[Pg 92] service, we owe not only an obligation of kindness, but the care of attention in sickness and old age. We have accordingly established places of retirement for them. The kind relations existing for ages between us and all animal kind has modified their conduct to us in a way that would be striking to you, and would lead you to believe that they possess more intelligence than you have given them credit for. They come to us in their troubles, and submit in the most human way to medical treatment in their hospitals. You would be interested to note the friendly familiarity existing between us and our birds, who in brilliancy of plumage and song are far ahead of yours. They abound in our city parks, and one has only to open the window and whistle and they will come flying into the apartment, engaging themselves in a concert of song, perched about on the furniture, as a happy privilege. On any other occasion when one comes silent and alone we know what it portends, and it is tenderly carried to the bird hospital.”

“You have,” I ventured to enquire, “railroads and boats for transportation?”

“We have neither,” answered my visitor, “nor do we require them, for reasons easily explained. There are[Pg 93] two conditions of our planet which render the navigation of the air entirely safe and successful. They are the greater density of our atmosphere, and the diminished force of gravity compared with yours. Our air ships, as you would call them, are easily made to sustain and move large cargoes, by vacuum chambers and electric motors. Our inventors have long since surmounted the difficulties of adverse wind currents, and these vessels, of both public and private use, may be seen constantly moving about in all directions, and at all altitudes, with but few serious accidents.

“There are no large oceans like yours on Mars, and our rivers are so small as not to serve the purposes of commerce. You will perceive, then, that our facilities for navigating the air were bestowed upon us as a means of transportation, in lieu of the convenient waterways which you enjoy. As you may anticipate, from the small size of our rivers, there are no extensive mountainous water sheds upon our surface. Instead of your immense, desolate, and storm-beaten seas, we have a series of lakes, everywhere varying in size, but none of them larger than seventy-five of your miles long, and forty broad.

“The relative density between water and an animal[Pg 94] body being such on our planet as to render the possibility of drowning by accident impossible, the fear and horror existing with you of involuntary immersion in the depths is entirely unknown. Our numerous lakes are therefore scenes of the most enjoyable, and what would be with you, reckless diversion. The upsetting of a boat with its load of excursionists, no matter where, results in merely a harmless frolic. The human body there sinks in the water only a little above its middle, and we have contrived, by web-like fastenings to the hands and feet, a means of propulsion so rapid as to nearly equal our speediest locomotion on the land. During our long summers, when the temperature of the water is agreeable, lake journeys, especially by the young, are among the most popular amusements. This, to you, strange condition of density is productive of a state of affairs partaking of the humorous, although leading to much domestic perplexity and annoyance. Our children take to the water in the summer season as naturally as your water fowl, and the loss of offspring upon the lakes, at that tender age which precludes their knowledge of the return direction, is the source of an immense amount of parental disturbance and worry. The straying of children upon the waters is[Pg 95] attended, however, with but little danger; since, if by any possibility they remain undiscovered during the night, they can, owing to the buoyancy of their bodies, sleep tranquilly and delightfully upon their backs, resting upon the cushions of the waters until rescued, as they are sure to be on the succeeding day, by one of the numerous airships constantly skimming the surface.

“Our land is generally rolling, and there is a constant water movement in the channels connecting these small bodies of water, not in a uniform direction toward the sea, as with you, but in all directions, thus saving to us a power for mechanical purposes than which nothing better can be conceived.

“Our cities, as you may imagine, are not located as yours are; but, since one place is as good as another for a distributing point, the rule has been to build them up where conditions are favorable, chiefly considered of which have been the health, comfort, and pleasure of their inhabitants. It would be doing us injustice to believe that, with our long period of development and progress, we have not achieved something far ahead of you in the sanitary and labor-saving appliances about us, especially in our metropolitan districts. In the first place, we use no[Pg 96] wood whatever in the construction of our buildings, having discovered long ago a tendency during its slow decay to absorb and retain the germs of disease and uncleanliness. Neither is its durability satisfactory; and its ready inflammability and lack of strength render it unfitted for our purposes. We use, instead, a metallic alloy unknown to you, which is susceptible of a high polish, as inoxidizable as gold, and with that character of penetrability which permits fastening with nails and shaping by tools, with even greater exactness than you work with wood.

“Our cities are built with uniformity. Their growth is invariably from the center outward. Their location is not a matter of chance, as yours generally is. No site is chosen without the thorough examination and approval of a sanitary commission, whose knowledge and sincerity we respect. Their foundation is made by the laying out of a large circular enclosure for the location of all public buildings, among which, in the center and more magnificent than all in its imposing loftiness and artistic finish, is our temple of worship. From this center radiate a set of wide and uniform thoroughfares, and these are crossed at regular intervals by circular ones, which begin at the[Pg 97] center and are repeated to the circumference as a series of concentric rings.”

The man from Mars became silent for a moment, and I observed that for the first time his face was clouded a little. He had spoken of a temple of worship, and it had started in my mind a wish to hear something of the society and morals of his people, and how they compared with us; so I said to him: “I am grateful to you for your kindness in describing some of the material surroundings of your people, but I would like very much to know something of your inner lives, of your thoughts and beliefs, and how they affect your social condition.”

“My brother,” said he, “you wish me to make a comparison between our society and yours. I can scarcely do so without the risk of giving you pain. With our greater advancement, we look back upon you as travelers over the same rough paths. Your journey is even a more difficult one than ours. In your present state, you appear to us as a world of discord, confusion, and strife. While we were long ago resolved into a single, homogeneous people, you are still divided into nations and countries, unridden yet of the barbarous pride of combat. We have but one religion. Yours are many and antagonistic.[Pg 98] I shall briefly make for you the comparison you wish, hoping that it may bring no sense of pain to you, for, to speak the truth, the cruelty, the intense individual selfishness, and the strange superstitions of the inhabitants of the Earth will pass away out of the ages to come.”