Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The First Men in the Moon Chapter 25 - The Grand Lunar

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The First Men in the Moon Chapter 25 - The Grand Lunar · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty five 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 five The Grand Lunar.
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  Speaker 1: The penultimate message describes, with occasionally elaborate detail, the encounter
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  Speaker 1: between Cavore and the Grand Lunar, who is the ruler
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  Speaker 1: or master of the moon. Cavor seems to have sent
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  Speaker 1: most of it without interference, but to have been interrupted
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  Speaker 1: in the concluding portion. The second came after an interval
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  Speaker 1: of a week. The first message begins at last I
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  Speaker 1: am able to resume this. It then becomes illegible for
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  Speaker 1: a space, and after a time resumed in mid sentence.
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  Speaker 1: The missing words of the following sentence are probably the
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  Speaker 1: crowd there follows quite clearly grew ever denser, as we
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  Speaker 1: drew near the palace of the Grand Lunar. If I
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  Speaker 1: may call a series of excavations a palace, everywhere faces
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  Speaker 1: stared at me, blank kitanous gapes and masks, eyes peering
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  Speaker 1: over tremendous olfactory developments, eyes beneath monstrous forehead plates and
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  Speaker 1: undergrowth of smaller creatures dodged and yelped, and helmet faces
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  Speaker 1: poised on sinuous, long jointed necks appeared, craning over shoulders
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  Speaker 1: and beneath armpits, keeping a welcome space. About me marched
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  Speaker 1: a cordon of stolid, scuttle headed guards who had joined
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  Speaker 1: us on our leaving the boat in which we had
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  Speaker 1: come along the channels of the Central Sea. The quick
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  Speaker 1: eyed artist with a little brain joined us. All ss
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  Speaker 1: so and a thick bunch of lean porter insects swayed
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  Speaker 1: and struggled under the multitude of conveniences that were considered
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  Speaker 1: essential to my state. I was carried in a litter
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  Speaker 1: during the final stage of our journey. This litter was
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  Speaker 1: made of some very ductile metal that looked dark to me,
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  Speaker 1: meshed and woven, and with bars of paler metal. And
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  Speaker 1: about me as I advanced, there grouped itself a long
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  Speaker 1: and complicated procession. In front, after the manner of heralds
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  Speaker 1: marched four trumpet faced creatures making a devastating bray, and
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  Speaker 1: then came squat, resolute moving ushers before and behind, and
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  Speaker 1: on either hand a gallery of learned heads, a sort
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  Speaker 1: of animated encyclopedia, who were Fiu explained to stand about
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  Speaker 1: the Grand Lunar for purposes of reference, not a thing
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  Speaker 1: in lunar science, not a point of view or method
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  Speaker 1: of thinking that these wonderful beings did not carry in
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  Speaker 1: their heads. Followed guards and porters, and then FIU's shivering brain,
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  Speaker 1: borne also on a litter. Then came seat puff in
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  Speaker 1: a slightly less important litter. Then myself on a litter
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  Speaker 1: of greater elegance than any other, and surrounded by my
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  Speaker 1: food and drink attendants. More trumpeters came next, splitting the
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  Speaker 1: ear with vehement outcries, and then several big brains special correspondence,
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  Speaker 1: one might well call them, or historiographers, charged with the
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  Speaker 1: task of observing and remembering every detail of this epoch
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  Speaker 1: making interview. A company of attendants bearing and dragging banners
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  Speaker 1: and masses of scented fungus and curious symbols, vanished in
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  Speaker 1: the darkness. Behind the way was lined by ushers and
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  Speaker 1: officers and caparisons that gleamed like steel, and beyond their line,
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  Speaker 1: so far as my eyes could pierce the gloom, the
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  Speaker 1: heads of that enormous crowd extended. I will own that
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  Speaker 1: I am still, by no means indurated to the peculiar
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  Speaker 1: effect of the Selenite appearance, and to find myself, as
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  Speaker 1: it were, a drift on this broad sea of excited entomology,
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  Speaker 1: was by no means agreeable. Just for a space, I
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  Speaker 1: had something very like what I should imagine people mean
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  Speaker 1: when they speak of the horrors. It had come to
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  Speaker 1: me before in these lunar caverns, when on occasion I
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  Speaker 1: have found myself weaponless and with an undefended back amidst
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  Speaker 1: a crowd of these Selenites, but never quite so vividly.
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  Speaker 1: It is, of course, as absolutely irrational a feeling as
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  Speaker 1: one could well have, and I hope gradually to subdue it.
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  Speaker 1: But just for a moment, as I swept forward into
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  Speaker 1: the welter of the vast crowd, it was only by
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  Speaker 1: gripping my I littered tightly and summoning all my will
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  Speaker 1: power that I succeeded in avoiding an outcry or some
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  Speaker 1: such manifestation. It lasted perhaps three minutes that I had
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  Speaker 1: myself in hand. Again, we ascended the spiral of a
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  Speaker 1: vertical way for some time, and then passed through a
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  Speaker 1: series of huge halls, dome roofed and elaborately decorated. The
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  Speaker 1: approach to the Grand Lunar was certainly contrived to give
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  Speaker 1: one a vivid impression of his greatness. Each cavern one
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  Speaker 1: entered seemed greater and more boldly arched than its predecessor.
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  Speaker 1: This effect of progressive size was enhanced by a thin
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  Speaker 1: haze of faintly luminescent blue incense that thickened as one
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  Speaker 1: advanced and robbed even the nearer figures of clearness. I
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  Speaker 1: seemed to advance continually to something larger, dimmer, and less material.
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  Speaker 1: I must confess that all this multitude made me feel
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  Speaker 1: extremely shabby and unworthy. I was unshaven and unkempt. I
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  Speaker 1: had brought no razor, I had a coarse beard over
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  Speaker 1: my mouth. On Earth, I have always been inclined to
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  Speaker 1: despise any attention to my person beyond a proper care
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  Speaker 1: for cleanliness. But under the exceptional circumstances in which I
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  Speaker 1: found myself representing as I did my planet and my kind,
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  Speaker 1: and depending very largely upon the attractiveness of my appearance,
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  Speaker 1: for a proper reception. I could have given much for
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  Speaker 1: something a little more artistic and dignified than the husks
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  Speaker 1: I wore. I had been so serene in the belief
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  Speaker 1: that the moon was uninhabited as to overlook such precautions. Altogether,
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  Speaker 1: as it was, I was dressed in a flannel jacket, knickerbockers,
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  Speaker 1: and golfing stockings, stained with every sort of dirt. The
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  Speaker 1: moon offered slippers of which the left heel was wanting,
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  Speaker 1: and a blanket threw a hole in which I thrust
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  Speaker 1: my head. These clothes, indeed, I still wear sharp bristles,
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  Speaker 1: are anything but an improvement to my cast of features.
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  Speaker 1: And there was an unmended tear at the knee of
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  Speaker 1: my knickerbockers that showed conspicuously as I squatted in my litter.
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  Speaker 1: My right stocking, too, persisted in getting about my ankle.
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  Speaker 1: I am fully alive to the injustice my appearance did humanity.
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  Speaker 1: And if by any expedient I could have improvised something
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  Speaker 1: a little out of the way and imposing, I would
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  Speaker 1: have done so. But I could hit upon nothing. I
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  Speaker 1: did what I could with my blanket, folding it somewhat
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  Speaker 1: after the fashion of a toga and for the rest
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  Speaker 1: I sat as upright as the swaying of my litter permitted.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine the largest hall you have ever been in, imperfectly
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  Speaker 1: lit with blue light and obscured by a gray blue fog,
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  Speaker 1: surging with metallic or vivid grave creatures of such a
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  Speaker 1: mad diversity as I have hinted. Imagine this hall to
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  Speaker 1: end in an open archway, beyond which is a still
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  Speaker 1: larger hall, and beyond this yet another and still larger one,
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  Speaker 1: and so on. At the end of the vista, dimly
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  Speaker 1: seen a flight of steps, like the steps of Aracolai
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  Speaker 1: at Rome, ascend out of sight, higher and higher. These
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  Speaker 1: steps appear to go as one draws nearer their base.
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  Speaker 1: But at last I came under a huge archway and
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  Speaker 1: beheld the summit of these steps, and upon it the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Lunar exalted on his throne. He was seated in
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  Speaker 1: what was relatively a blaze of incandescent blue. This and
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  Speaker 1: the darkness about him, gave him an effect of floating
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  Speaker 1: in a blue black void. He seemed a small, self
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  Speaker 1: luminous cloud at first, brooding on his somber throne. His
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  Speaker 1: brain case must have measured many yards in diameter. For
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  Speaker 1: some reason that I cannot fathom. A number of blue
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  Speaker 1: searchlights radiated from behind the throne on which he sat,
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  Speaker 1: and immediately encircling him, with a halo about him, and
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  Speaker 1: little and indistinct in this glow, a number of body
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  Speaker 1: servants sustained and supported him, and overshadowed and standing in
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  Speaker 1: a huge semicircle beneath him, were his intellectual subordinates, his
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  Speaker 1: remembrancers and computators, and searchers and servants. At all the
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  Speaker 1: distinguished insects of the court of the Moon. Still lower
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  Speaker 1: stood ushers and messagers, And then all down the countless
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  Speaker 1: steps of the throne were guards, and at the base
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  Speaker 1: enormous various indistinct vanishing at last into an absolute black,
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  Speaker 1: A vast, swaying multitude of the minor dignitaries the Moon.
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  Speaker 1: Their feet made a perpetual scraping whisper on the rocky floor,
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  Speaker 1: as their limbs moved with a rustling murmur. As I
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  Speaker 1: entered the penultimate hall, the music rose and expanded into
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  Speaker 1: an imperial magnificence of sound, and the shrieks of the
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  Speaker 1: newsbearers died away. I entered the last and greatest hall,
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  Speaker 1: My procession opened out like a fan. My ushers and
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  Speaker 1: guards went right and left, and the three litters bearing
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  Speaker 1: myself and Fiu and Sea Puff, marched across a shiny
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  Speaker 1: darkness of floor to the foot of the giant stairs.
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  Speaker 1: Then began a vast, throbbing hum that mingled with the music.
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  Speaker 1: The two Selenites dismounted, but I was bidden remained seated,
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  Speaker 1: I imagine as a special honor. The music ceased, but
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  Speaker 1: not that humming, and by a simultaneous movement of ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand respectful heads. My attention was directed to the inhaloed
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  Speaker 1: supreme intelligence that hovered above me. At first, as I
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  Speaker 1: peered into the radiating glow, this quintessential brain looked very
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  Speaker 1: much like an opaque, featureless blatter, with dim undulating ghosts
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  Speaker 1: of convolutions writhing visibly within them. Beneath its enormity, and
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  Speaker 1: just above the edge of the throne, one saw with
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  Speaker 1: a start minute elfin eyes peering out of the glow.
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  Speaker 1: No face, but eyes as if they peered through holes.
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  Speaker 1: At first I could see no more than these two
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  Speaker 1: staring little eyes, and then below I distinguished the little
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  Speaker 1: dwarfed body and its insect jointed limbs shriveled in white.
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  Speaker 1: The eyes stared down at me with a strange intensity,
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  Speaker 1: and the lower part of the swollen globe was wrinkled,
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  Speaker 1: ineffectual looking. Little hand tentacles steadied the shape on the throne.
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  Speaker 1: It was great, it was pitiful. One forgot the haul
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  Speaker 1: and the crowd. I ascended the staircase by jerks. It
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  Speaker 1: seemed to me that this darkly glowing brain case above
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  Speaker 1: us spread over me and took more and more of
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  Speaker 1: the whole effect into itself. As I drew nearer, the
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  Speaker 1: tears of attendants and helpers grouped about their master seemed
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  Speaker 1: to dwindle and fade into the night. I saw that
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  Speaker 1: shadowy attendants were busy spraying that great brain with a
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  Speaker 1: cooling spray, and patting and sustaining it. For my own part,
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  Speaker 1: I sat gripping my swaying litter and staring at the
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  Speaker 1: grand lunar, unable to turn my gaze aside. And at last,
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  Speaker 1: as I reached a little landing that was separated only
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  Speaker 1: by ten steps or so from the supreme seat, the woven,
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  Speaker 1: splendid of the music reached a climax and ceased, and
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  Speaker 1: I was left naked as it were in that vastness
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  Speaker 1: beneath the still scrutiny of the Grand Lunar's eyes. He
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  Speaker 1: was scrutinizing the first man he had ever seen. My
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  Speaker 1: eyes dropped at last from his greatness to the ant
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  Speaker 1: figures in the blue mist about him, and then down
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  Speaker 1: the steps to the masked Selenites, still and expectant in
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  Speaker 1: their thousands, packed on the floor below. Once again, an
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  Speaker 1: unreasonable horror reached out towards me and passed. After the
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  Speaker 1: pause came the salutation. I was assisted from my litter
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  Speaker 1: and stood awkwardly while a number of curious and no
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  Speaker 1: doubt deeply symbolical gestures were vicariously performed for me by
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  Speaker 1: two slender officials. The encyclopedic galaxy of the learned that
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  Speaker 1: had accompanied me to the entrance of the last Hall appeared
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  Speaker 1: two steps above me and left and right of me,
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  Speaker 1: in readiness for the Grand Lunar's need, and FIU's pale
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  Speaker 1: brain placed itself about half way up to the throne,
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  Speaker 1: in such a position as to communicate easily between us
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  Speaker 1: without turning his back on either the Grand Lunar or myself.
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  Speaker 1: Sea Puff took up position behind him, dexterous ushers sidled
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  Speaker 1: sideways towards me, keeping a full face to the presence.
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  Speaker 1: I seated myself turkish fashion, and Fiu and Sea Puff
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  Speaker 1: also knelt down above me. There came a pause. The
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  Speaker 1: eyes of the nearer court went from me to the
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  Speaker 1: Grand Lunar and came back to me, and a hissing
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  Speaker 1: and piping of expectation passed across the hidden multitudes below
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  Speaker 1: and ceased. That humming ceased for the first and last
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  Speaker 1: time in my experience. The moon was silent. I became
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  Speaker 1: aware of a faint, wheezy noise. The Grand Lunar was
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  Speaker 1: addressing me. It was like the rubbing of a finger
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  Speaker 1: upon a pane of glass. I watched him attentively for
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  Speaker 1: a time, and then glanced at the alert Fiu. I
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  Speaker 1: felt amidst these slender beings, ridiculously thick and fleshy and solid.
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  Speaker 1: My head all jaw and black hair. My eyes went
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  Speaker 1: back to the Grand Lunar. He had ceased. His attendants
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  Speaker 1: were busy, and his shining superfices were glistening and running
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  Speaker 1: with cooling spray. Fiu meditated through an interval. He consoled
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  Speaker 1: Sea Puff. Then he began piping his recognizable English, at
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  Speaker 1: first a little nervously, so that he was not very clear.
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  Speaker 1: M The Grand Lunar wished to say, wishes to say
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  Speaker 1: he gathers you are men, that you are a man
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  Speaker 1: from the planet Earth. He wishes to say that he
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  Speaker 1: welcomes you, welcomes you, and wishes to learn learn, if
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  Speaker 1: I may use the word, the state of your world,
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  Speaker 1: and the reason why you came to this. He paused.
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  Speaker 1: I was about to reply when he resumed. He proceeded
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  Speaker 1: to remarks of which the drift was not very clear,
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  Speaker 1: although I am inclined to think they were intended to
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  Speaker 1: be complimentary. He told me that the Earth was to
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  Speaker 1: the Moon what the Sun is to the Earth, and
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  Speaker 1: that the Selenites desired very greatly to learn about the
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  Speaker 1: Earth and men. He then told me, no doubt in compliment,
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  Speaker 1: also the relative magnitude and diameter of Earth and Moon,
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  Speaker 1: and the perpetual wonder and speculation with which the Selenites
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  Speaker 1: had regarded our planet. I meditated with downcast eyes, and
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  Speaker 1: decided to reply that men too had wondered what might
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  Speaker 1: lie in the Moon, and had judged it dead. Little
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  Speaker 1: reckoning of such magnificence as I had seen that day,
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  Speaker 1: the Grand Lunar, in token of recognition, caused his long
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  Speaker 1: blue rays to rotate in a very confusing manner, and
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  Speaker 1: all about the Great Hall ran the pipings and whisperings
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  Speaker 1: and rustlings of the report of what I had said.
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  Speaker 1: He then proceeded to put to Fiu a number of
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  Speaker 1: inquiries which were easier to answer he understood. He explained
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  Speaker 1: that we lived on the surface of the Earth, that
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  Speaker 1: our air and sea were outside the globe. The latter part,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: indeed he already knew from his astronomical specialists. He was
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  Speaker 1: very anxious to have more detailed information of what he
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: called this extraordinary state of affairs, for from the solidity
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of the Earth there had always been a disposition to
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  Speaker 1: be regarded as uninhabitable. He endeavored first to ascertain the
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  Speaker 1: extremes of temperature to which we earth beings were exposed,
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  Speaker 1: and he was deeply interested by my descriptive treatment of
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  Speaker 1: clouds and rain. His imagination was assisted by the fact
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  Speaker 1: that the lunar atmosphere in the outer galleries of the
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  Speaker 1: night's side is not infrequently very foggy. He seemed inclined
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  Speaker 1: to marvel that we did not find the sunlight too
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  Speaker 1: intense for our eyes, and was interested in my attempt
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  Speaker 1: to explain that the sky was tempered to a bluish
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  Speaker 1: color through the refraction of the air, though I doubt
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  Speaker 1: if he clearly understood that. I explained how the iris
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  Speaker 1: of the human eyes can contract the pupil and save
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  Speaker 1: the delicate internal structure from the excess of sunlight, and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was allowed to approach within a few feet of the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: presence in order that this structure might be seen. This
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  Speaker 1: led to a garrison of the lunar and terrestrial eyes.
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  Speaker 1: The former is not only excessively sensitive to such light
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  Speaker 1: as men can see, but it can also see heat,
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  Speaker 1: and every difference in temperature within the moon renders objects
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  Speaker 1: visible to it. The iris was quite a new organ
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  Speaker 1: to the Grand Lunar. For a time he amused himself
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  Speaker 1: by flashing his rays into my face and watching my
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: pupils contract. As a consequence. I was dazzled and blinded
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  Speaker 1: for some little time. But in spite of that discomfort,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I found something reassuring by insensible degrees in the rationality
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  Speaker 1: of this business of question and answer. I could shut
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  Speaker 1: my eyes, think of my answer, and almost forget that
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  Speaker 1: the Grand Lunar has no face. When I had descended
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  Speaker 1: again to my proper place, the Grand Lunar asked how
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  Speaker 1: we sheltered ourselves from heat and storms, and I expect
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  Speaker 1: counted to him the arts of building and furnishing. Here
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: we wandered into misunderstandings and cross purposes, due largely, I
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: must admit to the looseness of my expressions. For a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: long time I had great difficulty in making him understand
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  Speaker 1: the nature of a house. To him and his attendant Zlenites,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it seemed, no doubt the most whimsical thing in the
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  Speaker 1: world that men should build houses when they might descend
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  Speaker 1: into excavations. And an additional complication was introduced by the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: attempt I made to explain that men had originally begun
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  Speaker 1: their homes in caves, and that they were now taking
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  Speaker 1: their railways and many establishments beneath the surface. Here, I
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  Speaker 1: think a desire for intellectual completeness betrayed me. There was
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  Speaker 1: also a considerable tangle due to an equally unwise attempt
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  Speaker 1: on my part to explain about minds. Dismissing this time
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  Speaker 1: topic at last, in an incomplete state, the Grand Lunar
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  Speaker 1: inquired what we did with the interior of our globe.
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  Speaker 1: A tide of twittering and piping swept into the remotest
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  Speaker 1: corners of that great assembly. When it was at last
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: made clear that we men know absolutely nothing of the
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  Speaker 1: contents of the world upon which the immemorial generations of
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  Speaker 1: our ancestors had been evolved. Three times had I to
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: repeat that of all the four thousand miles of distance
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  Speaker 1: between the Earth and its center, men knew only to
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  Speaker 1: the depth of a mile, and that very vaguely I
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  Speaker 1: understood the Grand Lunar to ask why had I come
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  Speaker 1: to the Moon, seeing we had scarcely touched our own
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  Speaker 1: planet yet, But he did not trouble me at that
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  Speaker 1: time to proceed to an explanation, being too anxious to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: pursue the details of this mad inversion of all his ideas,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: he reverted to the question of weather. And I tried
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  Speaker 1: to describe the perpetually changing sky and snow and frost
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  Speaker 1: and hurricanes. But when the night comes, he asked, is
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  Speaker 1: it not cold? I told him it was colder than
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: by day, and does not your atmosphere freeze? I told
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  Speaker 1: him not, that it was never cold enough for that,
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  Speaker 1: because our nights were so short, not even liquify. I
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: was about to say no, but then it occurred to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: me that one part, at least of our atmosphere, the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: water vapor of it, does sometimes liquify and form dew,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and sometimes freezes and forms frost, a process perfectly analogous
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to the freezing of all the external atmosphere of the
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: Moon during its longer night. I made myself clear on
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: this point, and from that the Grand Lunar went on
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: to speak with me of sleep. For the need of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: sleep that comes so regularly every twenty four hours to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: all things is part also of our earthly inheritance. On
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the Moon, they rest only at rare intervals and after
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: exceptional exertions. Then I tried to describe to him the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: soft splendors of a summer night, and from that I
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: passed to a description of those animals that prowl by
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: night and sleep by day. I told him of lions
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and tigers. And here it seemed as though we had
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: come to a deadlock. For save in their waters, there
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: are no creatures in the Moon not absolutely domestic and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: subject to His will, And so it has been for
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: immemorial years. They have monstrous water creatures. But no evil beasts,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: and the idea of anything strong and large existing outside
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: in the night is very difficult for them. The record
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: here is too broken to transcribe for the US space
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of perhaps twenty words or more. He talked with his attendants,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: as I suppose upon the strange superficiality and unreasonableness of
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: man who lives on the mere surface of a world,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: a creature of waves and winds and all the chances
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of space, who cannot even unite to overcome the beasts
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that prey upon his kind, and yet who dares to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: invade another planet. During this acide I sat thinking, and then,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: at his desire, I told him of the different sorts
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of men. He searched me with questions, and for all
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: sorts of work, you have the same sort of men.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: But who thinks? Who governs? I gave him an outline
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: of the democratic method. When I had done, he ordered
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: cooling sprays upon his brow, and then requested me to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: repeat my explanation, conceiving something had miscarried. Do they not
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: do di different things? Then? Said few, Some I admitted,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: were thinkers, and some officials, some hunted, some were mechanics,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: some artists, some toilers. But all rule, I said, And
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: have they not different shapes to fit them to their
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: different duties? None that you can see, I said, except
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: perhaps for clothes. Their minds perhaps differ a little, I reflected.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Their minds must differ a great deal, said the grand lunar,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: or they would all want to do the same things.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: In order to bring myself into a closer harmony with
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: his preconceptions, I said that his surmise was right. It
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: was all hidden in the brain, I said, But the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: difference was there. Perhaps if one could see the minds
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: and souls of men, they would be as varied and
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: unequal as the cell nights. There were great men and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: small men, men who could reach out far and wide,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: men who could go swiftly, noisy trumpet minded men, and
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: men who could remember without thinking. The record is indistinct
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: for three words. He interrupted me to recall me to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: my previous statements. But you said, all men rule, he
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: pressed to a certain extent, I said, and made I
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: fear a denser fog with my explanation. He reached out
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to a salient fact. Do you mean? Asked he that
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: there is no grand earthly I thought of several people,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: but assured him finally that there was none. I explained
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: that such autocrats and emperors as we had tried upon
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: earth had usually ended in drink, or vice or violence,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and that the large and influential section of the people
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the Earth, to which I belonged, the Anglo Saxons,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: did not mean to try that sort of thing again,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: at which the Grand Lunar was even more amazed. But
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: how do you keep even such wisdom as you have,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: he asked, And I explained to him the way we
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: helped our limited a word omitted here probably brains with
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: libraries of books. I explained to him how our science
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: was growing by the united labors of innumerable little men,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and on that he made no comment, save that it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was evident we had mastered much in spite of our
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: social savagery, or we could not have come to the moon.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yet the contrast was very marked with knowledge. The Selenites
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: grew and changed, mankind stored their knowledge about them and
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: remained brutes equipped. He said this here there is a
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: short piece of the record, indistinct, that caused me to
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: describe how we went about this earth of ours. And
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: I described to him our railways and ships. For a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: time he could not understand that we had had the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: use of steam only one hundred years, but when he did,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: he was clearly amazed. I may mention as a singular
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: thing that the Selenites use years to count by, just
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: as we do on Earth, though I can make nothing
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of their numerical system. That, however, does not matter, because
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: FIU understands ours. From that, I went on to tell
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: him that mankind had dwelt in cities only for nine
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: or ten thousand years, and that we were still not
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: united in one brotherhood, but under many different forms of government.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: This astonished the Grand Lunar very much when it was
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: made clear to him. At first he thought we referred
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: merely to administrative areas. Our states and empire are still
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the rawest sketches of what order will some day be,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I said, And so I came to tell him at
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: this point, a length of record that probably represents thirty
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: or forty words is totally illegible. The Grand Lunar was
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: greatly impressed by the folly of men in clinging to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the inconvenience of divers tongues. They want to communicate, and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: yet not to communicate, he said, and then for a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: long time. He questioned me closely concerning war. He was
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: at first perplexed and incredulous you mean to say, he asked,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: seeking confirmation that you run about over the surface of
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: your world, this world whose riches you have scarcely begun
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to scrape, killing one another for beasts to eat. I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: told him that was perfectly correct. He asked for particulars
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to assist his imagination. But do not ships and your
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: poor little cities get injured, he asked, and I found
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the waste of property and conveniences seemed to impress him
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: almost as much as the killing. Tell me more, said
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: the Grand Lunar, make me see pictures. I cannot conceive
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: these things, and so for space, though somewhat loath, I
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: told him the story of earthly war. I told him
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: of the first orders and ceremonies of war, of warnings
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and ultimatums, and the marshaling and marching of troops. I
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: gave him an idea of maneuvers and positions and battle joined.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I told him of sieges and assaults, of starvation and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: hardship in trenches, and of sentinels freezing in the snow.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I told him of routs and surprises, and desperate last
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: stands and faint hopes, and the pitiless pursuit of fugitives,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and the dead upon the field. I told too, of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the past of invasions and massacres, of the Huns and Tartars,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and the wars of Mahomet and the Caliphs, and of
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the Crusades. And as I went on and Fiu translated,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and the Selenites cooed and murmured in a steadily intensified emotion,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I told them an ironclad could fire a shot of
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: a ton twelve miles and go through twenty feet of iron,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And how we could steer torpedoes under water. I went
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: on to describe a maxim gun in action in what
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I could imagine of the Battle of Colenso the Grand
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: Lunar was so incredulous that he interrupted the translation of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: what I had said in order to have my verification
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: of my account. They particularly doubted my description of the
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: men cheering and rejoicing as they went into battle. But
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: surely they do not like it translated Fiu, I assured them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Men of my race considered battle the most glorious experience
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: of life, at which the whole assembly was stricken with amazement.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: But what good is this war, asked the Grand Lunar,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: sticking to his theme. Oh as for good, said I
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: it thens the population, But why should there be a need?
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: There came a pause, the cooling sprays impinged upon his brow,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and then he spoke again. At this point, a series
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of undulations that have been apparent as a perplexing complication
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: as far back as cavorus description of the silence that
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: fell before the first speaking of the Grand Lunar, become
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: confusingly predominant in the record. These undulations are evidently the
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: result of radiations proceeding from a lunar's source, and the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: persistent approximation to the alternating signals of Cavore is curiously
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: suggestive of some operator deliberately seeking to mix them in
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: with his message and render it illegible. At first, they
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: are small and regular, so that with a little care
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: and the loss of very few words, we have been
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: able to disentangle Kuvore's message. Then they become broad and larger.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Then suddenly they are irregular, with an irregularity that gives
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the effect, at last, of someone scribbling through a line
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of writing. For a long time, nothing can be made
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: of this madly zigzagging trace. Then quite abruptly, the interruption ceases,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: leaves a few words clear, and then resumes and continues
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the message, completely obliterating whatever Cavour
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was attempting to transmit. Why, if this is indeed a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: deliberate intervention, the Selenites should have preferred to let kivore
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: go On transmit his message in happy ignorance of their
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: obliteration of its record, when it was clearly quite in
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: their power and much more easy and convenient for them
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to stop his proceedings at any time. Is a problem
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: to which I can contribute nothing. The thing seems to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: have happened, so, and that is all I can say.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: This last rag of his description of the Grand Lunar
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: begins in mid sentence. Interrogated me very closely upon my secret.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I was able in a little while to get to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: an understanding with them, and at last to elucidate what
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: had been a puzzle to me ever since I realized
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: the vastness of their science, namely, how it is they
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: themselves have never discovered cavarite. I find they know of
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: it as a theoretical substance, but they have always regarded
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: it as a practical impossibility, because for some reason, there
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: is no helium in the moon, and helium across the
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: last letters of helium slashes the resumption of that obliterating trace.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Note that word secret. For that and that alone, I
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: base my interpretation of the message that follows the last
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: message as both mister Wendigee and myself now believe it
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to be, that he is ever likely to send us.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter