Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma

“ How poor they all seemed in comparison with the church of our ward! There are three things in which we have an immeasurable advantage over men. We have immortality, for the powers of death have been conquered in us for ages, and so we need not waste our powers in the struggle how to live. We have had perfect peace, without a possibility of war, for thousands of years. We have a devotion to offer the vast resources in our power to the service of religion. So the poorest church of the smallest and most insignificant city in our world is grander than the finest cathedral or palace upon earth. ”

“ We rose over the mighty heaving ocean of the giant planet.
"There is no chance," said Arauniel, "of conversing with these huge beings, as we did on the gorgeous planet we have left. Whatever may be their polity, their thoughts, their faith, their hopes, we cannot know. They seem of another order to us,—another class of beings. The inner and lesser planets, such as the Earth, or our own planet of love, and the one we have left, all have much alike, and so life in them is like; but here we have life of another type, and one with which we cannot well communicate." ”

“ Not a city, not a house, not a tree, not even a blade of grass was to be seen. All horror, desolation, death! And yet, withal, Nature, even in that dead world, has a certain strange beauty.
I made for the central group of mountains (which I have likened to the Malverns) . Here on their southern slope I descended. The shock was violent, though I tried to soften the fall. I dismounted from my car and trod another world, the third world I had visited. It was a solemn and sublime feeling,–that of treading a fresh world in space.
I clambered up the chief peak of the central mountain of Tycho. ”

“ I have beheld man in his various races, in his struggles for higher things, in his sorrows, in his agonies, in his death. I have seen some noble things on earth, very many wretched and miserable things; not a few, very terrible—to us inconceivably terrible. I have beheld men struggling against their misery, and in vain; I have witnessed starvation, want, disease in a thousand loathsome forms of death. I have seen the wretched selfishness of men grasping for self only; the weak crushed by the strong, and the strong still insatiate. ”

“ The cannon were roaring as a thunderstorm, and yet the Parisian crowd was looking on calmly, as if merely witnessing a tragedy, instead of themselves being in a beleaguered city. Suddenly I noticed Dr. Posela passing close by me.
"Where are you going?" I said.
"To the ramparts. I must do my best for the wounded. Oh, it is a terrible war! How can men ever carry on and systematise this horrid mode of settling national differences? Hark! how the cannon are roaring! Many a soul is being launched into eternity. How terrible! How unfit are some to go!" ”

“ A thousand peaks were in sight, chain beyond chain, ridge beyond ridge, of mountains;—the vast, glittering region of the lunar South Pole on the one side, and to the north the huge crater-chain rising in successive lines. "Is all this," I thought, "the result of the terrific convulsions that ruined life upon this satellite, or is it but the nature of this world—a world of mountain ranges,—of huge craters,—of volcanic action?"
Then I rose upwards into the dark airless expanse of ether, and directed my car to the mighty ring of Ptolomæus. ”

“ In a moment we felt its heaving as it was shaken by the waves. It was evidently of some light substance, floating upon the waves. Still, putting our ether ship into a cleft, we rested awhile, watching the strange scene of the tempestuous waves and the vast overhanging clouds, and every moment were reminded of the primæval chaos, such as our world and the earth were in in the remote ages, before the time when lands and continents were defined, and when all was yet unformed.
"Surely," said Arauniel, "this huge planet has not yet attained its solid state, like Earth and Mars and our world." ”

“ It was a magnificent edifice, but quite impossible for me to describe; huge in massive grandeur, richly ornate with singular designs of colossal size. It was partly of rock, partly of metal, and most of its ornaments were imitations of natural objects, for the Martians hold that the highest conception of beauty is in the works of God, and the best they can do is to imitate them.
It was a wonderful scene that opened to my eyes as I passed that portal. I had known for ages the soft and peaceful worship of God in our blissful world. ”

“ There is a certain majesty and power in the colour of red which, when seen in large fields, impresses the mind. But no one who has not seen vast masses of red all around in every direction above (in leafy foliage) , below in the ruddy, as it were, blood-stained turf, around—in vegetation of quaint forms, but of crimson hue, can realise the inexpressible gorgeousness of this spectacle—a field of peonies or other red flowers would very feebly represent it, for these red flowers of earth have green leaves, and ours have pale and delicate tints ”

“ We floated on in this wondrous spectacle over the vast world, the glorious rings and the seven moons giving light (for seven only were in sight) to the strange scene of heaving oceans, and here and there low islands clad in mist and cloud, of that strange world. Night soon passed. Again the sun rose to give a clear light to that singular spectacle, but still a dim one compared to that which you and we have. Soon after sunrise, however, the great banks of cloud hid him from our eyes, and we were enwrapped in mist. ”

“ Some of the gardens were on the roofs or on the fronts of houses, full of flowers, while between not a few of the towers were massive chains from which hung, here and there, baskets of creeping plants of every hue, which sent their perfume up to us. It was a beautiful scene of many colours and forms, where art used nature for her purposes; and nature, in that world, is as lovely as it is on earth, or even almost as with us, though so very different. ”

“ Such souls as good men have are fitted for a higher existence, not only than earth, but even than our lovely world can offer. Our natures are soft, and gentle, and simple; but we have never known the struggle against sin and sorrow that men know.
"I have seen many things that you never can see on our world. I have seen the hospital—men and women struggling with death in dying agony. I have seen misery such as you cannot fancy—thousands, tens of thousands, without enough of light or air, in smoky, dingy, dirty dens, lingering on a weary life to make others rich. ”

“ Thus once more we plunged into space—infinite space,—dark, airless ether, with the myriads of glittering stars far off on every side. Again we got upon a meteor ring, and swept on through space toward the mighty system of the Ringed World. The journey was long— days and weeks and months, by your earth-measurement of time, passed on this weary voyage. Still Saturn seemed little more than a great star in space, with its mighty rings and its eight moons slowly growing more and more distinct. ”

“ Around the city, from many miles afar, were to be seen the lower mountains of the chain rounded into the form of spheres, each of which depicted some world in the solar system, carved over and stained as gigantic models of the planets around us. Close to the city was the model of the earth, a globe far vaster than any man has ever made, six hundred yards around, on which the loftier Himalayas were raised some four or five inches, and where London was marked as a dark spot about the size of a large leaf. ”

“ As I drew near it, in the vast realms of space, I loosened my car from the meteor, and then, restoring the power of gravitation, dashed on into the lunar sphere of gravitation towards the southern mountain-region that surrounds the lunar South Pole. It was a wondrously grand, and yet an awful, spectacle,–those vast and desolate rings of lunar mountains. Chain beyond chain, circle beyond circle, ring beyond ring, of extinct volcanoes opened up to my vision,–all glistening in the bright sunlight. To man, the heat would have been fatal. ”

“ No animal or even insect could have lived in the airless realms of ether through which I had passed, so all I brought was dead—dead as the meteoric stones, the sole link in matter between the earth and other systems in space. Living beings only of the highest order and the most vigorous vitality can pass from world to world and live. So nothing earthly could exist even a hundred miles away from its own orb—man is a prisoner to his world. ”

“ There is nothing on earth like it. Around us were the green waves, varied by forests of algæ of many colours, which tinted the waters into the semblance of a vast and glorious garden, while beyond, on either side of the long and narrow inlet were the ruddy shores of the two continents, with their crimson forests covering hill and dale, varied here and there by distant ranges of snow-capped mountains, soon lightened by the sun. ”

“ Down we sank until at last the anti-gravitating power had to be used to stem the impetus, and even when we reached the snowy peak of one of the ice mountains, we struck it with a violence that almost cracked the rock. Our vessel was, however, strongly constructed, and so it was merely shaken.
Again I felt the joy of treading the firm ground of another world. This was the fourth I had stood upon. My native world had even for ages been my joy—a happy abode. Earth I had trodden on and traversed, even in places where man's foot had never wandered, in Arctic snows, up to the very Pole itself. ”

“ But is there not some truth in the old beliefs of mankind on the Earth, which are now exploded—of Titans, and Mermaids, and ocean-beings endowed with life and intelligence? On Earth there are none such, and never were; but it may be that man, by inspiration, or by instinct, or by contact with spirits superior to himself, has gained the thought of such a type of life as this endowed with intelligence. On earth once it was the hugest type of life, and still it is so, for the animals of the sea are greater than on the land. ”

“ The ether-car was fixed to the central spire of the chief cathedral of the city — one of the highest points of our world. About two millions of our Venusians had gathered to behold the spectacle, and now they crowded every vantage point in the city—every spire and tower, every battlement and roof, every square and garden, was thronged with the vast host who had gathered from all lands to behold the sight. ”

“ It is a sad, a sorrowful world, that 'beautiful planet of the single satellite,' our twin sister in space. There is sin there, and death, and suffering, and disease, and war. I have seen all—all—much that is sad and terrible, such as we never even think of in our happy world. And yet it is beautiful. What God has made is beautiful, and that world is beautiful; not quite as lovely as ours, yet very lovely sometimes, and it is larger than ours ”

“ I went to Saldonio in our air car. It was a long journey of three days, half round our world, for Saldonio was in a far-off continent. Thousands of fair cities, vast territories of beauteous vegetation, lakes, rivers, and seas did we pass over, night and day. Still on we flew, until, at last, we reached the mighty mountain ring, upon one peak of which Saldonio was reared. It was built on a plateau of rock some twenty miles above the plains, far above the fleecy clouds which usually cover our planet. ”

“ Have we not known for ages, that this giant world was very light in its gravitating power, considering its size? It appears a liquid sphere, or system rather, as the mighty Sun is a vast orb of gases or metals fused into a gaseous state. In our world, as on Earth and Mars, all three states of matter exist fairly proportioned—the solid, the liquid and the gaseous; in the Earth's Moon you say you only found the solid; in the Sun there seems to be only the gaseous; why should we not here expect to find the liquid dominant—a world in which the fluid prevails as with us the solid? ”

“ My spirit was moved to its depths as I looked down on the vast host before me, and thought of God's love to me in giving me so bright and glorious a world to live in. What a contrast to the earth—torn by strife, desolated by sin, stained by sorrow, suffering, misery! ”

“ I asked. "It seems to me there is a great deal more idle time and amusement in this world than on earth."
"Most of our work is done, as you see, by our control of natural forces. We convert the storm and the ocean wave into electricity, and by this we have a vast—almost an immeasurable—command of power. Thus, we can do our work, control and turn nature to our will, with little effort. So the more our control of the forces of nature has increased, the more leisure we have found for recreation, for development of the inner life, for study, for mental improvement, for relaxation. ”