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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 24 - The Natural History of the Selenites · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four of The First Men in the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. This recording is by Mark Smith
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  Speaker 1: of Simpsonville, South Carolina. The First Men in the Moon
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  Speaker 1: by H. G. Wells, Chapter twenty four, The Natural History
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  Speaker 1: of the Selenites. The messages of Cavor from the sixth
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  Speaker 1: up to the sixteenth are for the most part so
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  Speaker 1: much broken, and they abound so in repetitions that they
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  Speaker 1: scarcely form a consecutive narrative. They will be given in full,
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  Speaker 1: of course, and the scientific report. But here it will
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  Speaker 1: be far more convenient to continue simply to abstract and quote.
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  Speaker 1: As in the former chapter, we have subjected every word
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  Speaker 1: to a keen critical scrutiny, and my own brief memories
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  Speaker 1: impressions of lunar things have been of inestimable help in
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  Speaker 1: interpreting what would otherwise have been impenetrably dark and naturally
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  Speaker 1: as living beings. Our interest centers far more upon the
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  Speaker 1: strange community of lunar insects in which he was living.
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  Speaker 1: It would seem as an hottered guest than upon the
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  Speaker 1: mere physical condition of their world, I have already made
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  Speaker 1: it clear. I think that the Selenites I saw resembled
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  Speaker 1: man in maintaining the erect attitude and in having four limbs.
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  Speaker 1: And I have compared the general appearance of their heads
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  Speaker 1: and the jointing of their limbs to that of insects.
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  Speaker 1: I have mentioned to the peculiar consequence of the smaller
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  Speaker 1: gravitation of the Moon on their fragile slightness. Cavor confirms
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  Speaker 1: me upon all these points. He calls them animals, though
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  Speaker 1: of course they fall under no division of the classification
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  Speaker 1: of earthly creatures, and he points out the insect type
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  Speaker 1: of anatomy had, fortunately for men, never exceeded a relatively
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  Speaker 1: very small size on Earth. The largest terrestrial insects, living
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  Speaker 1: or extinct, do not, as a matter of fact, measure
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  Speaker 1: six inches in length. But here against the lesser gravitation
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  Speaker 1: of the moon, a creature certainly as much an insect
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  Speaker 1: as vertebrate, seems to have been able to attain to
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  Speaker 1: human and ultra human dimensions. He does not mention the ant,
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  Speaker 1: but throughout his illusions, the ant is continually being brought
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  Speaker 1: before my mind in its sleepless activity, in its intelligence
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  Speaker 1: and social organization, in its structure, and more particularly in
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  Speaker 1: the fact that it displays, in addition to the two forms,
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  Speaker 1: the male and the female form that almost all other
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  Speaker 1: animals possess, a number of other sexless creatures, workers, soldiers,
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  Speaker 1: and the like, differing from one another in structure, character, power,
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  Speaker 1: and use. And yet all members of the same species.
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  Speaker 1: For these selenites also have a great variety of forms.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, they are not only colossally greater in size
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  Speaker 1: than ants, but also, in Cavor's opinion, at least in intelligence, morality,
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  Speaker 1: and social wisdom, are they colossally greater than men. And
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  Speaker 1: instead of the four or five different forms of ant
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  Speaker 1: that are found, there are almost innumerably different forms of selenite.
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  Speaker 1: I had endeavored to indicate the very considerable difference observable
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  Speaker 1: in such selenites of the outer crust. As I happened
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  Speaker 1: to encounter, the differences in size and proportions were certainly
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  Speaker 1: as wide as the differences between the most widely separated
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  Speaker 1: races of men. But such differences, as I saw, fade
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  Speaker 1: absolutely to nothing in comparison with the huge distinctions of
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  Speaker 1: which cavortels it would seem the exterior selenites I saw
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  Speaker 1: were indeed mostly engaged in kindred occupations moon calf herds, butchers, fleshers,
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  Speaker 1: and the like. But within the moon, practically unsuspected by me,
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  Speaker 1: there are, it seems, a number of other sorts of selenite,
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  Speaker 1: differing in size, differing in the relative size of part
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  Speaker 1: to part, differing in power and appearance, and yet not
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  Speaker 1: different species of creatures, but only different forms of one species,
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  Speaker 1: and retaining through all their variations a certain common likeness
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  Speaker 1: that marks their specific unity. The moon is indeed a
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  Speaker 1: sort of vast ant hill, only instead of there being
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  Speaker 1: only four or five sorts of ants, there are many
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  Speaker 1: hundred different sorts of selenite, and almost every gradation between
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  Speaker 1: one sort and another, it would seem the discovery came
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  Speaker 1: upon Cavore very speedily. I infer, rather than learn from
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  Speaker 1: his narrative, that he was captured by the mooncalf her words,
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  Speaker 1: under the direction of these other selenites, who have larger
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  Speaker 1: brain cases, heads, and very much shorter legs. Finding he
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  Speaker 1: would not walk even under the goad that carried him
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  Speaker 1: into darkness, crossed a narrow plank like bridge that may
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  Speaker 1: have been the identical bridge, I had refused and put
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  Speaker 1: him down in something that must have seemed at first
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  Speaker 1: to be some sort of lift. This was the balloon.
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  Speaker 1: It had certainly been absolutely invisible to us in the darkness,
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  Speaker 1: and what had seemed to me a mere plank walking
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  Speaker 1: into the void was really, no doubt the passage of
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  Speaker 1: the gangway. In this he descended towards constantly more luminous
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  Speaker 1: caverns of the moon. At first they descended in silence
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  Speaker 1: save for the twitterings of the Selenites, and then into
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  Speaker 1: a stir of windy movement. In a little while, the
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  Speaker 1: profound blackness had made his eyes so sensitive that he
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  Speaker 1: began to see more and more of the things about him,
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  Speaker 1: and at last the vague took shape. Conceive an enormous
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  Speaker 1: cylindrical space, says Cavor in his seventh message, a quarter
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  Speaker 1: of a mile across, perhaps very dimly lit it first,
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  Speaker 1: and then brighter, with big platforms twisting down its sides
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  Speaker 1: in a spiral that vanishes at last below in a
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  Speaker 1: blue profundity, and lit even more brightly. One could not
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  Speaker 1: tell how or why think of the well of the
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  Speaker 1: very largest spiral, staircase or lift shaft that you have
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  Speaker 1: ever looked down, and magnify that by a hundred. Imagine
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  Speaker 1: it at twilight, seen through blue glass. Imagine yourself looking
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  Speaker 1: down that only. Imagine also that you feel extraordinarily light
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  Speaker 1: and have got rid of any giddy feeling you might
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  Speaker 1: have on Earth, and you will have the first conditions
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  Speaker 1: of my impression. Round this enormous shaft, imagine a broad
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  Speaker 1: gallery running in a much steeper spiral than would be
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  Speaker 1: credible on Earth, and forming a steep road, protected from
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  Speaker 1: the gulf only by a little parapet that vanishes at
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  Speaker 1: last in perspective a couple of miles below. Looking up,
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  Speaker 1: I saw the very fellow of the downward vision. It had,
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  Speaker 1: of course, the effect of looking into a very steep cone.
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  Speaker 1: A wind was blowing down the shaft, and far above,
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  Speaker 1: I fancy I heard, growing fainter and fainter, the bellowing
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  Speaker 1: of the moon calves that were being driven down again
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  Speaker 1: from their evening pasturage. On the exterior, and up and
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  Speaker 1: down the spiral galleries were scattered numerous moon people, pallid,
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  Speaker 1: faintly luminous beings regarding our appearance, or busied on unknown errands.
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  Speaker 1: Either I fancied it or a flake of snow came
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  Speaker 1: drifting down on the icy breeze, and then falling like
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  Speaker 1: a snowflake, A little figure, a little man insect, clinging
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  Speaker 1: to a parachute, drove down very swiftly towards the central
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  Speaker 1: places of the moon. The big headed Selenite sitting beside me,
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  Speaker 1: seeing me move my head with the gesture of one
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  Speaker 1: who saw, pointed with his trunk like hand and indicated
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  Speaker 1: a sort of jetty coming into sight very far below
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  Speaker 1: a little landing stage as it were, hanging into the void.
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  Speaker 1: As it swept up towards us, our pace diminished very rapidly,
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  Speaker 1: and in a few moments, as it seemed, we were
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  Speaker 1: abreast of it, and at rest, a mooring rope was
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  Speaker 1: flung and grasped, and I found myself pulled down to
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  Speaker 1: a level with a great crowd of Selenites who jostled
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  Speaker 1: to see me. It was an incredible crowd. Suddenly and violently,
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  Speaker 1: there was forced upon my attention the vast amount of
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  Speaker 1: difference there is a amongst these beings of the moon. Indeed,
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  Speaker 1: there seemed not too alike in all that jostling multitude.
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  Speaker 1: They differed in shape, they differed in size. They rang
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  Speaker 1: all the horrible changes on the theme of selenite form.
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  Speaker 1: Some bulged and overhung, some ran about among the feet
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  Speaker 1: of their fellows. All of them had a grotesque and
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  Speaker 1: disquieting suggestion of an insect that is somehow contrived to
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  Speaker 1: mock humanity. But all seemed to present an incredible exaggeration
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  Speaker 1: of some particular feature. One had a vast right fore limb,
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  Speaker 1: an enormous antennal arm, as it were. One seemed all
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  Speaker 1: leg poised as it were on stilts. Another protruded the
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  Speaker 1: edge of his face mask into a nose like organ
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  Speaker 1: that made him startlingly human until one saw his expressionless,
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  Speaker 1: gaping mouth. The strange and except for the want of
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  Speaker 1: manti and palps, most insect like head of the mooncalf
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  Speaker 1: minders underwent indeed the most incredible transformations. Here it was
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  Speaker 1: broad and low, here, high and narrow. Here its leathery
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  Speaker 1: brow was drawn out into horns and strange features. Here
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  Speaker 1: it was whiskered and divided, and there with a grotesquely
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  Speaker 1: human profile. One distortion was particularly conspicuous. There were several
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  Speaker 1: brain cases distended like bladders to a huge size, with
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  Speaker 1: a face mask reduced to quite small proportions. There were
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  Speaker 1: several amazing forms with heads reduced to microscopic proportions, and
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  Speaker 1: blobby bodies and fantastic, flimsy things that existed. It would
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  Speaker 1: seem only as a basis for vast trumpet like protrusions
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  Speaker 1: of the lower part of the mask. And oddest of all,
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  Speaker 1: as it seemed to me for the moment, two or
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  Speaker 1: three of these weird and held evidence of a subterranean world,
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  Speaker 1: a world sheltered by innumerable miles of rock from sun
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  Speaker 1: or rain. Carried umbrellas in their tenticulate hands, real terrestrial
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  Speaker 1: looking umbrellas. And then I thought of the parachutist I
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  Speaker 1: had watched descend. These moon people behaved exactly as a
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  Speaker 1: human crowd might have done in similar circumstances. They jostled
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  Speaker 1: and thrust one another, They shoved one another aside. They
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  Speaker 1: even clambered upon one another to get a glimpse of me.
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  Speaker 1: Every moment they increased in numbers and pressed more urgently
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  Speaker 1: upon the discs of my ushers. Cavor does not explain
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  Speaker 1: what he means by this. Every moment, fresh shapes emerged
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  Speaker 1: from the shadows and forced themselves upon my astounded attention.
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  Speaker 1: And presently I was signed and helped into a sort
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  Speaker 1: of litter, and lifted up on the shoulders of strong
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  Speaker 1: armed bearers, and so borne through the twilight over this
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  Speaker 1: seething multitude towards the apartments that were provided for me
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  Speaker 1: in the moon. All about me were eyes, faces, masks,
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  Speaker 1: a leathery noise like the rustling of beetle wings, and
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  Speaker 1: a great bleeding and cricket like twittering of Selenite voices.
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  Speaker 1: We gather he was taken to a hexagonal apartment, and
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  Speaker 1: therefore a space he was confined. Afterwards, he was given
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  Speaker 1: a much more considerable liberty, indeed almost as much freedom
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  Speaker 1: as one has in a civilized town on Earth. And
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  Speaker 1: it would appear that the mysterious being who is the
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  Speaker 1: ruler and master of the Moon, appointed two Selenites with
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  Speaker 1: large heads to guard and study him, and to establish
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  Speaker 1: whatever mental communications were possible with him. And amazing and
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  Speaker 1: incredible as it may seem, these two creatures, these fantastic men,
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  Speaker 1: in side these beings of other worlds, were presently communicating
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  Speaker 1: with Cavore by means of terrestrial speech. Cavour speaks of
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  Speaker 1: them as fi Ou and c puff fi U. He
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  Speaker 1: says was about five feet high. He had small, slender
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  Speaker 1: legs about eighteen inches long, and slight feet of the
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  Speaker 1: common lunar pattern on These balanced the little body throbbing
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  Speaker 1: with the pulsations of his heart. He had long, soft,
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  Speaker 1: many jointed arms ending in a tentacled grip, and his
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  Speaker 1: neck was many jointed in the usual way, but exceptionally
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  Speaker 1: short and thick. His head, says Cavour, apparently alluding to
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  Speaker 1: some previous description that has gone astray in space, is
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  Speaker 1: of the common lunar type, but strangely modified. The mouth
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  Speaker 1: has the usual expressionless gape, but it is unusually small
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  Speaker 1: and pointing downward, and the mass disk is reduced to
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  Speaker 1: the size of a large flat nose flap. On either
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  Speaker 1: side are the little eyes. The rest of the head
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  Speaker 1: is distended into a huge globe, and the kitanous leathery
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  Speaker 1: cuticle of the mooncalf herds thins out to a mere
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  Speaker 1: membrane through which the pulsetting brain movements are distinctly visible.
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  Speaker 1: He is a creature, indeed, with a tremendously hypertrophied brain,
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  Speaker 1: and with the rest of his organism both relatively and
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  Speaker 1: absolutely dwarfed. In another passage, Cavor compares the back view
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  Speaker 1: of him to Atlas supporting the world. See Puff, it seems,
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  Speaker 1: was a very similar insect, but his face was drawn
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  Speaker 1: out to a considerable length, and the brain hypertrophy being
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  Speaker 1: in different regions. His head was not round but pear shaped,
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  Speaker 1: with the stalk downward. There were also litter carriers, lopsided
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  Speaker 1: beings with enormous shoulders, very spidery ushers, and a squat
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  Speaker 1: foot attendant in Kvore's retinue. The manner in which Fiu
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  Speaker 1: and Sea Puff attacked the problem of speech was fairly obvious.
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  Speaker 1: They came into this hexagonal cell in which Cavore was confined,
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  Speaker 1: and began imitating every sound he made, beginning with a cough.
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  Speaker 1: He seems to have grasped their intention with great quickness,
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  Speaker 1: and to have begun repeating words to them and pointing
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  Speaker 1: to indicate the application. The procedure was probably always the same.
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  Speaker 1: Fiu would attend to cavour for a space, then point
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  Speaker 1: also and say the word he had heard. The first
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  Speaker 1: word he mastered was man, and the second moonie, which Cavore,
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  Speaker 1: on the spur of the moment, seems to have used
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  Speaker 1: instead of selenite for the moon race. As soon as
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  Speaker 1: Fiu was assured of the meaning of a word, he
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  Speaker 1: repeated it to see Puff, who remembered it infallibly. They
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  Speaker 1: mastered over one hundred English nouns at their first session. Subsequently,
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  Speaker 1: it seems they brought an artist with them to assist
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  Speaker 1: the work of explanation, with sketches and diagrams, Cavore's drawings
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  Speaker 1: being rather crude. He was, says Cavour, a being with
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  Speaker 1: an active arm and an arresting eye, and he seemed
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  Speaker 1: to draw with incredible swiftness. The eleventh message is undoubtedly
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  Speaker 1: only a fragment of a longer communication after some broken sentences,
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  Speaker 1: the record of which is unintelligible. It goes on, but
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  Speaker 1: it will interest only linguists and delay me too long
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  Speaker 1: to give the details of the series of intent parleys
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  Speaker 1: of which these were the beginning. And indeed I very
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  Speaker 1: much doubt if I could give in anything like the
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  Speaker 1: proper order all the twistings and turnings that we made
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  Speaker 1: in our pursuit of mutual comprehension. Verbs were soon plain sailing,
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  Speaker 1: at least such active verbs as I could express by drawings.
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  Speaker 1: Some adjectives were easy, but when it came to abstract
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  Speaker 1: nouns to prepositions, and the sort of hackneyed figures of speech,
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  Speaker 1: by means of which so much as expressed on earth.
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  Speaker 1: It was like diving in cork jackets. Indeed, these difficulties
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  Speaker 1: were insurmountable until to the sixth Lesson came a fourth assistant,
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  Speaker 1: a being with a huge football shaped head, whose forte
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  Speaker 1: was clearly the pursuit of intricate analogy. He entered in
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  Speaker 1: a preoccupied manner, stumbling against a stool, and the difficulties
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  Speaker 1: that arose had to be presented to him with a
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  Speaker 1: certain amount of clamor and hitting and pricking before they
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  Speaker 1: reached his apprehension. But once he was involved, his penetration
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  Speaker 1: was amazing. Whenever there came a need of thinking beyond Fiuz,
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  Speaker 1: by no means limited scope, this prolate headed person was
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  Speaker 1: in request. But he invariably told the conclusion to see
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  Speaker 1: puff in order that it might be remembered. See puff
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  Speaker 1: was ever the arsenal for facts, And so we advanced again.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed long and yet brief, a matter of days
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  Speaker 1: before I was positively talking with these insects of the moon.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, at first it was an intercourse infinitely tedious
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  Speaker 1: and exasperating, but imperceptibly it has grown to comprehension, and
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  Speaker 1: my patience has grown to meet its limitations. FIU it
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  Speaker 1: is who does all the talking. He does it with
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  Speaker 1: a vast amount of meditative provisional mum ums, and has
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  Speaker 1: caught up one or two phrases. If I may say,
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  Speaker 1: if you understand and beads all his speech with him,
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  Speaker 1: thus he would discourse. Imagine him explaining his artists, hm
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  Speaker 1: m he. If I may say, draw, eat, little, drink little, draw, love,
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  Speaker 1: draw no other thing. Hate all who do not draw
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  Speaker 1: like him, angry, hate all who draw like him better,
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  Speaker 1: hate most people, hate all who do not think all
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  Speaker 1: world for to draw angry mm all things mean nothing
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  Speaker 1: to him, only draw. He like you if you understand
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  Speaker 1: new thing to draw, ugly striking a he turning to sea,
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  Speaker 1: puff love, remember words, remember, wonderful more than any think, no, draw,
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  Speaker 1: no remember say here He referred to his gifted assistant
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  Speaker 1: for a word histories all things he here once say. Ever,
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  Speaker 1: it is more wonderful to me than I dreamt that
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  Speaker 1: anything ever could be. Again to hear in this perpetual obscurity,
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  Speaker 1: these extraordinary creatures, for even familiarity fails to weaken the
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  Speaker 1: inhuman effect of their appearance. Continually piping a nearer approach
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  Speaker 1: to coherent earthly speech, asking questions, giving answers. I feel
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  Speaker 1: that I am casting back to the fable hearing period
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  Speaker 1: of childhood again, when the ant and the grasshopper talk
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  Speaker 1: together and the bee judge between them. And while these
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  Speaker 1: linguistic exercises were going on, Cavor seems to have experienced
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: a considerable relaxation of his confinement. The first dread and
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  Speaker 1: distress are unfortunate conflict aroused as being, he said, continually
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  Speaker 1: effaced by the deliberate rationality of all I do. I
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  Speaker 1: am now able to come in and go as I please,
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  Speaker 1: or I am restricted only for my own good. So
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  Speaker 1: it is I have been able to get at this apparatus, and,
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  Speaker 1: assisted by a happy find among the material that is
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  Speaker 1: littered in this enormous store cave, I have contrived to
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  Speaker 1: dispatch these messages. So far, not the slightest attempt has
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  Speaker 1: been made to interfere with me in this though. I
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  Speaker 1: have made it quite clear to FIU that I am
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  Speaker 1: signaling to the earth. You talk to other, he asked,
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  Speaker 1: watching me, Others said, I others, he said, oh, yes, men,
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  Speaker 1: and I went on transmitting. Cavor was continually making corrections
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  Speaker 1: in his previous accounts of the Selenites, as fresh facts
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  Speaker 1: flowed upon him to modify his conclusions, And accordingly one
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: gives the quotations that follow with a certain amount of reservation.
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  Speaker 1: They are quoted from the ninth, thirteenth, and sixteenth Messages, and,
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  Speaker 1: altogether vague and fragmentary as they are, they probably give
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  Speaker 1: as complete a picture of the social life of this
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  Speaker 1: strange community as mankind can now hope to have for
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  Speaker 1: many generations in the moon, says Cavor, every citizen knows
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  Speaker 1: his place. He is born to that place, and the
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  Speaker 1: elaborate discipline of training, and education and surgery he undergoes
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  Speaker 1: fits him at last so completely to it that he
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  Speaker 1: has neither ideas nor organs for any purpose beyond it.
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  Speaker 1: Why should he, fo would ask, If, for example, a
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  Speaker 1: Selenite is destined to be a mathematician, his teachers and
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  Speaker 1: trainers set out at once to that end. They check
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  Speaker 1: any incipient disposition to other pursuits. They encourage his mathematical
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  Speaker 1: bias with a perfect psychological skill. His brain grows, or
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: at least the mathema faculties of his brain grows, and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the rest of him only so much as is necessary
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: to sustain this essential part of him at last, save
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for rest and food. His one delight lies in the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: exercise and display of his faculty, His one interest in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: its application, his soul society with other specialists in his
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: own line. His brain grows continually larger, at least so
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: far as the portions engaging in mathematics are concerned. They
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: bulge ever larger and seem to suck all life and
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: vigor for the rest of his frame. His limbs shrivel,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: his heart and digestive organs diminish. His insect face is
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: hidden under its bulging contours. His voice becomes a mere
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: stridulation for the stating of formula. He seems deaf to
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: all but improperly enunciated problems. The faculty of laughter, save
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: for the sudden discovery of some paradox, is lost to him.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: His deepest emotion is the evolution of a novel computation,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: and so he attains his end or again. A Selenite
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: appointed to be a minder of mooncalves, is from his
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: earliest years induced to think and live mooncalf to find
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: his pleasure in mooncalf lore. His exercise in their tending
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and pursuit, he is trained to become wiry and active.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: His eye is indurated to the tight wrappings, the angular
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: contours that constitute a smart mooncalfishness. He takes at last
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: no interest in the deeper part of the moon. He
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: regards all Selenites not equally versed in mooncalves with indifference, derision,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: or hostility. His thoughts are of mooncalf pastures and his
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: dialect and accomplished mooncalf technique. Also, he loves his work
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and discharges imperfect happiness the duty that justifies his being.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: And so it is with all sorts and conditions of Selenites.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Each is a perfect unit in a world machine. These
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: beings with big heads on whom the intellectual labors fall,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: form a sort of aristocracy in this strange society. And
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: at the head of them quintessential of the moon is
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: that marvelous, gigantic ganglion, the grand Lunar, into whose presence
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I am finally to come. The unlimited development of the
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: minds of the intellectual class is rendered possible by the
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: absence of any bony skull in the lunar anatomy, that
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: strange box of bone that clamps about the developing brain
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of man, imperiously insisting thus far and no farther to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: all his possibilities. They fall into three men may classes,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: differing greatly in influence and respect. There are administrators, of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: whom FIU is one, selenites a considerable initiative and versatility,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: responsible each for a certain cubic content of the moon's bulk.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: The experts, like the football headed thinker, who are trained
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to perform certain special operations, and the erudite, who are
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the repositories of all knowledge. To the latter class belongs
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: c Puff, the first lunar professor of terrestrial languages. With
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: regard to these latter, it is a curious little thing
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: to note that the unlimited growth of the lunar brain
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: has rendered unnecessary the invention of all those mechanical aids
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: to brain work which have distinguished the career of man.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: There are no books, no records of any sort, no
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: libraries or inscriptions. All knowledge is stored in distended brains,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: such as the honey ants of Texas store honey in
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: their distended abdomens. The Lunar Somerset House and the Lunar
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: British Museum Library are collections of living brains. The less
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: specialized administrators, I note, do, for the most part, take
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: a very lively interest in me. Whenever they encounter me.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: They will come out of the way and stare at
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: me and ask questions, to which FIU will reply. I
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: see them going hither and thither with a retinue of bearers, attendants, shouters,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: parachute carriers, and so forth queer groups to see. The experts,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: for the most part, ignore me completely, even as they
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: ignore each other or notice me only to begin a
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: clamorous exhibition of their distinctive skill. The erudite, for the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: most part, are wrapped in an impervious and apoplectic complacency
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: from which only a denial of their erudition can rouse them.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Usually they are led about by little watchers and attendants,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and often there are small and active looking creatures, small females,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: usually that I am inclined to think are a sort
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: of wife to them. But some of the profounder scholars
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: are altogether too great for locomotion, and are carried from
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: place to place in a sort of sedan tub wobbling
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: jellies of knowledge that enlist my respectful astonishment. I have
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: just passed one in coming to this place where I
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: am permitted to amuse myself with these electrical toys. A
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: vast shaven, shaky head, bald and thin skinned, carried on
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: his grotesque stretcher. In front and behind came as bearers
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and curious, almost trumpet faced news disseminators shrieked as fame.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I have already mentioned the retinues that accompany most of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the intellectuals Ushers, Bearers, valets, extraneous tentacles, and muscles, as
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: it were, to replace the abortive physical powers of these
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: hypertrophied mines. Porters almost invariably accompany them. There are also
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: extremely swift messengers with spider like legs and hands for
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: grasping parachutes, and attendants with vocal organs that could well
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: nigh wake the dead. Apart from their controlling intelligence, these
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: subordinates are as inert and helpless as umbrellas in a stand.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: They exist only in relation to the orders they have
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: to obey, the duties they have to perform. The bulk
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of these insects, however, who go to and fro upon
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the spiral ways, who fill the ascending balloons and drop
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: past me clinging to flimsy parachutes. Are I gathered of
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the operative class machine hands. Indeed, some of these are
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: in actual nature. It is not a figure of speech.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: The single tentacle of the moon calf heard is profoundly
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: modified for clawing, lifting, guiding. The rest of them no
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: more than necessary subordinate appendages to these important mechanisms have
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: enormously developed auditory organs. Some whose work lies in delicate
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: chemical operations, project a vast olfactory organ. Others again have
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: flat feet for treatles with ankylosed joints. And others, whom
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I have been told are glass blowers, seem mere lung bellows.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: But every one of these common selenites I have seen
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: at work is exquisitely adapted to the social need. It meets.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Fine work is done by fined down workers, amazingly dwarfed
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and neat. Some I could hold in the palm of
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: my hand. There is even a sort of turnspit selenite,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: very common, whose duty and only delight is to apply
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the motive power for various small appliances, and to rule
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: over these things, and order any erring tendency there might
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: be in some adherent natures. Are the most muscular beings
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I have seen in the moon, a sort of lunar police,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: who must have been trained from their earliest years to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: give a perfect respect and obedience to the swollen heads.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: The making of these various sorts of operative must be
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a very curious and interesting process. I am very much
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: in the dark about it. But quite recently I came
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: upon a number of young Selenites confined in jars, from
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: which only the four limbs protruded, who were being compressed
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to become machine binders of a special sort. The extended
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: hand in this highly developed system of technical education, is
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: stimulated by irritants and nourished by injection, while the rest
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: of the body is starved. Fi Ou, unless I misunderstood him,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: explained that in the earliest stages, these queer little creatures
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: are apt to display signs of suffering in their various
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: cramped situations, but they easily become indurated to their lot.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: And he took me on to where a number of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: flexible minded messengers were being drawn out and broken in.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: It is quite unreasonable, I know, but such glimpses of
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: the educational methods of these beings affect me disagreeably. I hope, however,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: that may pass off, and I may be able to
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: see more of this aspect of their wonderful social order.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: That wretched looking hand tentacle sticking out of its jar
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: seemed to have a sort of limp appeal for lost possibilities.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: It haunts me still, although of course it really is
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: in the end a far more humane proceeding than our
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: earthly method of leaving children to grow into human beings
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and then making machines of them. Quite recently too, I
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: think it was on the eleventh or twelfth visit I
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: made to this apparatus I had a curious light upon
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the lives of these operatives. I was being guided to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: a short cut hither, instead of going down the spiral
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and by the keys to the Central Sea. From the
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: devious windings of a long dark gallery, we emerged into
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a vast low cavern, pervaded by an earthy smell, and,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: as things go, in this darkness, rather brightly lit. The
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: light came from a tumultuous growth of livid fungoit shapes,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: some indeed singularly like our terrestrial mushrooms, but standing as
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: high or higher than a man. Mooneys eat these, said
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I to Fiu. Yes, fond goodness me, I cried, what's that?
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: My eye had caught the figure of an exceptionally big
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and ungainly selenite, lying motionless among the stems, face downward.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: We stopped dead, I asked, for as yet I had
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: seen no dead in the moon, and I have grown curious, No,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: exclaimed Fiu. Him worker, no work to do, Get little drink,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: then make sleep till we him want what good him? Wake? Eh?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: No want him walking about? There's another, cried I. And
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: indeed all that huge extent of mushroom ground was I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: found peppered with these prostrate figures sleeping under an opiate
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: until the moon had need of them. There were scores
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of them, of all sorts, and we were able to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: turn over some of them and examine them more precisely
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: than I had been able to previously. They breathed noisily
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: at my doing so, but did not wake one. I
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: remember very distinctly. He left a strong impression, I think
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: because some trick of the light and of his attitude
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: was strongly suggestive of a drawn up human figure. His
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: forelimbs were long, delicate dentacles. He was some kind of
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: refined manipulator, and the pose of his slumber suggested a
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: submissive suffering. No doubt, it was a mistake for me
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: to interpret his expression in that way, but I did,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: And as FIU rolled him over into the darkness among
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: the livid fleshiness, again I felt a distinctly unpleasant sensation,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: although as he rolled the insect in him was confessed.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: It simply illustrates the unthinking way in which one acquires
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: habits of feeling. To drug the worker one does not
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: want and toss him aside is surely far better than
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: to expel him from his fact to wander starving in
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the streets. In every complicated social community there is necessarily
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: a certain intermittency of employment for all specialized labor. And
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: in this way the trouble of an unemployed problem is
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: altogether anticipated, and yet so unreasonable are even scientifically trained minds.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I still do not like the memory of those prostrate
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: forms amidst those quiet, luminous arcades of fleshy growth, and
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I avoid that shortcut, in spite of the inconveniences of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: the longer, more noisy and more crowded alternative. My alternative
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: route takes me round by a huge shadowy cavern, very
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: crowded and clamorous. And here it is I see peering
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: out of the hexagonal openings of a sort of honeycomb wall,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: or parading a large open space behind, or selecting the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: toys and amulets made to please them by the dainty
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: tentacle jewelers who work in kennels below. The mothers of
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the moon world, the queen bees, as it were, of
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the hive. They are noble looking beings, fantastically and sometimes
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: quite beautifully, adorned with a proud carriage, and save for
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: their mouths, almost microscopic heads. Of the condition of the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: moon sexes marrying and giving in marriage, and of birth
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: and so forth among the selenites, I have as yet
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: been able to learn very little. With the steady progress
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: of FIU in English, however, my ignorance will no doubt
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: as steadily disappear. I am of opinion that, as with
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: the ants and bees, there is a large majority of
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the members in this community of the neuter sex. Of course,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: on Earth, in our cities, there are now many who
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: never live that life of parentage, which is the natural
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: life of man. Here, as with the ants, this thing
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: has become a normal condition of the race, and the
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: whole of such replacement as is necessary, falls upon this
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: special and by no means numerous class of matrons, the
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: mothers of the moon world, large and stately beings, beautifully
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: fitted to bear the larval selenite. Unless I misunderstand an
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: explanation of fe ouse, they are as absolutely incapable of
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: cherishing the young they bring into the moon periods of
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: foolish indulgence alternate with moods of aggressive violence, and as
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: soon as possible, the little creatures, who are quite soft
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and flabby and pale colored, are transferred to the charge
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: of celibate females, woman workers, as it were, who in
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: some cases possess brains of almost masculine dimensions. Just at
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: this point, unhappily, this message broke off. Fragmentary in tantalizing
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: as the matter constituting this chapter is, it does nevertheless
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: give a vague, broad impression of an altogether strange and
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: wonderful world, a world with which our own may have
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: to reckon. We know not how speedily this intermittent trickle
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of messages, this whispering of a record needle in the
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: stillness of the mountain slopes is the first warning of
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: such a change in human conditions, as mankind has scarcely
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: imagined heretofore. In that satellite of ours, there are new elements,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: new appliances, traditions, an overwhelming avalanche of new ideas, a
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: strange race with whom we must inevitably struggle for mastery,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: gold as common as iron or wood. End of chapter