Man as Seen from Mars.

Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5143, 11 July 1885, Page 4

Man as Seen from Mars.

These first two inhabitants of Mars whom I met seemed to consider mo with pity; and when I fancied, that I dis* •erned in their way of treating me a certain cold air of superiority my blood at once took fire, and with a strong effort al : pelf-restraint I opened ray lips to say : " Messieurs, I must inform you that the inhabitants of tbo earth are sot so stupid as you seem to believe."

. Unfortunately they did not even allow me to begin the sentence,, inasmuch as they had already divined what I was going to say by the molecular vibration of "my brain. , "(Let; me inform you, in the first place," said one of them, " that your planet has never been developed by reason of the accident which dates hack some ten millions of years. It was in (he primary epoch of the terrestial genesis. There were already plants, and admirable plants, and in the deeps of the sea, as we!l as upon the shores, the first animals bad made their* appearance—the molluscs, headless, dumb, and sexless.

"You know that respiration alone suffices for the ample nourishment of trees, and that your most sturdy oaks, your most gigantic cedars, have never eaten anything—a circumstance which, notwithstanding, has never retarded their growth. An ill chance brought it about that one of the fir ft molluscs had its body traversed by a water drop denser than the surrounding medium. Perhaps the mollusc thought it was very nice. This was the origin of the first digestive tube, which organ was destined to exercise so dismal an influence upon the whole animal world, and, at a later epoch, upon humanity itself. The first assassin was the mollusc who ate.

"Here on this planet we never eat; nothing has ever been eaten ; nothing ever will be eaten. Creation has been developed gradually, pacifically, nobly, as it commenced. AH organisms nourish themselves, or more correctly speaking renew their molecules by the simple act of respiration, just as do your terrestrial trees, each leaf being a little stomach. In your dear native world you cannot lire a single day except upon the condition of killing something The law of life with 50U is the law of death. Here it never entered anyone's mind to kill even a bird.

•- " You people of the earth are more or less butchers. Your bands are covered with blood. Your stomachs are gorged with victuals. How can you expect with such gross organisations to have any pure, wholesome, elevated ideas—l will even say cleanly ideas; pardon my frankness P"

"Whatl" I exclaimed, "you refuse me even the ability to have a cleanly idea P Do you think ali human beings are brutes? Homer, Phidias, Seneca, Virgil, Dante, Columbus, Bacon, Galileo, Pascal, Leorardo, Raphael. Mozart, Beethoven— have none of them ever,had an elevated aspiration ! You think our bodies gross ; but had yoa ever seen pass by you Helen, Pbryne, Aspasia, Sappho, Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia, Agnes Sorrel, Diana of [Poitiers, Marguerite de Valois, Borghese, Talien, Becamier, Gorges, and their admirable rivals, you might think differ* ently. Ah ! my dear Martian, allow me in my torn to regret that you only know the earth from a distance."

" There yon are mistaken. I inhabited that world of yours for fifty years. That was enough for me, and I assure you I •ball never return to it. Everything is a failnre, even what appears to you most charming."

"But," I resumed, "in spite of all, there are certainly great minds on the earth and admirable beauties."

" '" No, my friend; nevpr can you mate peaches grow upon briars. Keflcct that the most delicious terreslial beauties Whqm you recently referred to are noth« ing but clumsy monsters compared to the at rial women of Mars, who live only upon the air of our spring days, the perfumes of the flowers, and who are so voluptuously charming, even in the mere quivering of their wings, in the ideal kiss of a mouth which* has never eaten anything, tbat had Dante's Beatrice been like them the immortal Florentine would never have written two cantos of his 'Divina Commedia'; he wonld have begun with Paradise, and never have descended therefrom. Know alxo tbat our young lads have quite as much inborn scientific knowledge as Pythagoras, Archimedes, Euclid, Eeppler, Newton, Laplace, and Darwin, after all their laborious studies. Our twelve senses place us iv direct communication with the universe. Here, at the distance of 100,000,00.0 leagues, we feel the attraction of the pleuefc Jupiter in passing. We can distinguish with the naked eye the rings of Saturn. We can divine, in advance the approach of a comet; and our bodies are impregnated with that solar electricity which keeps all nature in vibration. Here there have never been any founders of empires, nor any international divisions nor wars; but our humanity, from its birth pacific and free from all material wants, has lived in thorough independence of body and mind, in a constant intellectual activity elevating itself unceasingly to the knowledge of the truth." — Translated from " Camilla Flammarion."