George Tucker

“ The Brahmin immediately presented himself before the council of state, to remove the impression. He pointed out to them the insurmountable obstacles to such an invasion, physical and moral. He urged to them that the nations of the earth felt so much jealousy and ill-will towards one another, that they never cordially co-operated in any enterprise for their common interest or glory; and that if any one nation were to send an army into the moon, such a scheme of ambition would afford at once a temptation and pretext for its neighbours to invade it. ”

“ As soon as I was dressed, I walked out into a large garden, and, as the sun was not yet so high as to make it sultry, was enjoying the balmy sweetness of the air, and the flowering shrubs, which in beauty and fragrance almost exceeded those of India, when I saw a servant run by the garden wall, enter the stable, and bring out a zebra. ”

“ Two half-grown llamas, which are naturally as quiet and timid as sheep, bit each other very furiously, until they foamed at the mouth. And, lastly, a large mastiff made his appearance, walking in a slow, measured gait, with a sleek tortoise-shell cat on his back; and she, in turn, was surmounted by a mouse, which formed the apex of this singular pyramid.
The keeper, remarking our unaffected surprise at the exhibition, asked us if we could now doubt the unlimited force of education, after such a display of the triumph of art over nature. ”

“ The science of astronomy is much cultivated by the inhabitants of the dark hemisphere, and is indebted to them for its most important discoveries, and its present high state of improvement.
If there is much rivalship among the natives of the same hemisphere, who differ in the length of their shadows, they all unite in hatred and contempt for the inhabitants of the opposite side. Those who have the benefit of a moon, that is, who are turned towards the earth, are lively, indolent, and changeable as the face of the luminary on which they pride themselves ”

“ After walking about three miles, the freshness of the morning air, the fragrance of the flowers, and the music of innumerable birds, whose unceasing carols testified their joy and delight at the approach of a more genial month, we came to a large, well cultivated farm, in which a number of coarse looking men were employed, with the aid of dogs, cross-bows, and other martial weapons, in hunting down llamas, and a small kind of buffalo, which, in one of our former walks, we had seen quietly feeding on a rich and extensive pasture. ”

“ The others are of a grave and sober character, as if to prepare the mind for serious contemplation in their long-enduring night. When the earth is at the full, which is their midnight, it is also a season of great festivity with them.
Eclipses of the sun are as common with the Lunarians as those of the moon are with us—the same relative position of the three bodies producing this phenomenon; but an eclipse of the earth never takes place, as the shadow of the moon passes over the broad disc of our planet, merely as a dark spot. ”

“ But the Brahmin put an end to that hope, by reminding me that we should be attracted towards the Equator, and that we had to choose between Asia, Africa, and South America; and that our only course would be, to check the progress of our car over the country of greatest extent, through which the equinoctial circle might pass. Saying which, he relapsed into his melancholy silence, and I betook myself once more to the telescope. With a bosom throbbing with emotion, I saw that we were descending towards the American continent. ”

“ Upon which they proceeded to blows, Dridrano all the while bellowing, "I beg, my worthy seniors, for the honour of science, that you will forbear!"
The noise of the dispute had waked the patient, who, learning the cause of the disturbance, calmly begged they would give themselves no concern about him, but let him die in peace. The domestics, who had been for some time listening to the dispute, on hearing the scuffle, ran in and parted the angry combatants, who, like an abscess just lanced, were giving vent to all the malignant humours that had been so long silently gathering. ”

“ But I suppose that that old miser, Shunah Shoo, is at the bottom of it; and, as he deprived her of the man she loved, he has compelled her to sacrifice herself to the one she hates, that he may have her jewels and wealth.'
"'For that matter,' said the first, 'though Shunah Shoo is bad enough for any thing where money is in the way, yet it is said that Veenah goes to the funeral pile of her own accord. She has never seemed to set any value on life since her marriage; and after she heard of Gurameer's death, she has never been seen to smile. ”

“ The intense heat of a climate, lying on each side of the Line, at once disinclines men to exertion, and renders it unnecessary. Vegetable diet is more suited to them than animal, which favours a denser population. Talent is elicited by the efforts required to overcome difficulties and hardships; and their natural birth-place is a country of frost and snow—of tempests—of sterility enough to give a spur to exertion, but not enough to extinguish hope. Where these difficulties exist, and give occasion to war and emulation, the powers of the human mind are most frequently developed. ”

“ But in the three voyages I have made to the moon, I have acquired so many new facts, and imparted so many to the learned men of that planet, that it is, without doubt, the subject of their active speculations at this time, and will, probably, assume a regular form long before the new science of phrenology of which you tell me, and which it must, in time, supersede. Now and then, though very rarely, the man of the earth regains the intellect he has lost; in which case his lunar counterpart returns to his former state of imbecility. ”

“ He shook his head.
"No, Atterley," said he, "do not deceive yourself. The duration of every species of polity is uncertain; the works of nature alone are permanent. The motions of the heavenly bodies are the same as they were thousands of years ago. But not so with the works of man. He is the identical animal that he ever was. His political institutions, however cunningly devised, have always been yet more perishable than his structures of stone and marble. ”

“ But if we look a little nearer, we may perhaps perceive, that amidst all those mutations in the character of nations, there are still some features that are common to the same people at all times, and which it would therefore be reasonable to impute to the great unvarying laws of nature. Thus it requires no extraordinary acuteness of observation, no strained hypothesis, to perceive a close resemblance between the Germans or the Britons of antiquity and their modern descendants, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, and an entire revolution in government, religion, language, and laws. ”

“ The Brahmin proposed that we now should dine; and, opening a small case, and drawing forth a cold fowl, a piece of dried goat's flesh, a small pot of ghee, some biscuits, and a bottle of arrack flavoured with ginger and spices, with a larger one of water, we ate as heartily as we had ever done at the hermitage; the slight motion of our machine to one side or the other, whenever we moved, giving us nearly as much exercise as a vessel in a smooth sea. ”

“ When I regard the great masses of mankind, I think there seems to be among them some characteristic differences. I see that the Europeans have every where obtained the ascendancy over those who inhabit the other quarters of the globe. But when I compare individuals, I see always the same passions, the same motives, the same mental operations; and my opinion is changed. The same seed becomes a very different plant when sowed in one soil or another, and put under this or that mode of cultivation. ”

“ That bright, serene sky—that happy combination of land and water, constituting the perfection of the picturesque, and that balmy softness of its air, which have proved themselves so propitious to forms of beauty, agility, and strength, also operate benignantly on the mind which animates them. ”

“ If mere difficulties were all that were wanting to call forth the intellectual energies of man, they have their full share on the borders of the Great Desert. There are in that whitish tract which separates the countries on the southern shores of the Mediterranean from the rest of Africa, thousands of human beings at this moment toiling over that dreary ocean of sand, to whom a draught of fresh water would be a blessing, and the simplest meal a luxury. ”

“ One is, that the progress of the nation in wealth, power, and greatness, is more rapid than the world has ever before witnessed. Another is, that our people, being less cramped and fettered by their necessities, and feeling, of course, less of those moral evils which poverty and discomfort engender, their character, moral and intellectual, will be developed and matured with greater celerity, and, I incline to think, carried to a higher point of excellence than has ever yet been attained. ”

“ As to those who do not call in question my veracity, but only doubt my sanity, I fearlessly appeal from their unkind judgment to the sober and unprejudiced part of mankind, whether, what I have stated in the following pages, is not consonant with truth and nature, and whether they do not there see, faithfully reflected from the Moon, the errors of the learned on Earth, and "the follies of the wise?" ”

“ We array the love of money against the love of power; or rather, one love of power to another. Moreover, as it is only by the civic virtues that our citizens recommend themselves to popular favour, there is nothing of that enthusiasm which military success excites among the natives."
Our Washington then presented himself to my mind, and for a moment I began to question his claim to the unexampled honours bestowed on him by his countrymen, until I recollected that he was as distinguished by his respect for the laws, and his sound views of national policy, as for his military services. ”

“ This cooling dish will suit your temperament," said he to a third; "and this stimulating one, yours," to a fourth. "Those little birds, which cost me five pieces, I shall divide between my terrestrial friend here (looking at the Brahmin) and myself, we being the most meritorious of the company, and it being of the utmost importance to society, that food so wholesome should give nourishment to our bodies, and impart vigour and vivacity to our minds." ”

“ You see the rose a very beautiful flower; and you have been accustomed, whenever you saw and felt its beauty, to perceive, at the same time, a certain odour. The beauty and the odour thus become associated in your mind, and the smell brings along with it the pleasure you feel in looking at it. But the chief part of the gratification you receive from smelling a rose, arises from some past scene of delight of which it reminds you ”

“ We say too, a man is "out of his head," that is, his mind being in another man's head, must of course be out of his own. To "know no more than the man in the moon," is a proverbial expression for ignorance, and is without meaning, unless it be considered to refer to the Glonglims. We say that an insane man is "distracted;" by which we mean that his mind is drawn two different ways. So also, we call a lunatic a man beside himself, which most distinctly expresses the two distinct bodies his mind now animates. ”

“ The happiest life, like the purest atmosphere, has its clouds as well as its sunshine; and what is worse, we never fully know the value of the one, until we have felt the inconvenience of the other. In the cultivation of my farm—in educating our children, a son and two daughters, in reading, music, painting—and in occasional visits to our friends in New-York and Philadelphia, seventeen years glided swiftly and imperceptibly away ”

“ Here, as well as every where else, desire outgoes gratification. Man sees or fancies much that he cannot obtain; and in his regret for what he wants, forgets what he already possesses. What is it to one with a tooth-ache, that a savoury dish is placed before him? It is the same with the mind as the body: when pain engrosses it in one way, it cannot relish pleasure in another. Every climate and country too, have their own evils and inconveniences. ”

“ It is generally believed in the east, that the moon, at particular periods of her revolution round the earth, has a great influence in causing rain; though every one must see, that, notwithstanding such influence must be the same in every part of the earth, it is invariably fair in one place, at the very time that it is rainy in another. Nay, we may safely aver that there is not a day, nor an hour, in the year, in which it is not dry and rainy, cloudy and clear, windy and calm, in hundreds of places at once."
I told the Brahmin that the same opinion prevailed in my country. ”

“ He contended, with true love of country, great plausibility, and an intimate knowledge of Oriental history, that letters and the arts had been first transplanted from Asia into Egypt.
"No other part of Africa," said he, "saving Egypt, can boast of any ancient monuments of the arts or of civilization. Even the pyramids, the great boast of Egypt, are proofs of nothing more than ordinary patient labour, directed by despotic power. Besides, look at that vast region, extending five thousand miles from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope, and four thousand from the Red Sea to the Atlantic. ”

“ The most conspicuous object of the solid part of the globe, was the Great Desert before mentioned. The whole of Africa, indeed, was of a lighter hue than either Asia or Europe, owing, I presume, to its having a greater proportion of sandy soil: and I could not avoid contrasting, in my mind, the colour of these continents, as they now appeared, with the complexions of their respective inhabitants. ”