A Journey in Other Worlds [73]
joviality, he felt at times
extremely lonely.
They swept along steadily for fifty hours, having bright sunny
days and beautifully moonlit nights. They passed over finely
rounded hills and valleys and well- watered plains. As they
approached the ocean and its level the temperature rose, and
there was more moisture in the air. The plants and flowers also
increased in size, again resembling somewhat the large species
they had seen near the equator.
"This would be the place to live," said Bearwarden, looking at
iron mountains, silver, copper, and lead formations, primeval
forests, rich prairies, and regions evidently underlaid with coal
and petroleum, not to mention huge beds of aluminum clay, and
other natural resources, that made his materialistic mouth water.
"It would be joy and delight to develop industries here, with no
snow avalanches to clog your railroads, or icy blizzards to
paralyze work, nor weather that blights you with sun-strokes and
fevers. On our return to the earth we must organize a company to
run regular interplanetary lines. We could start on this globe
all that is best on our own. Think what boundless possibilities
may be before the human race on this planet, which on account of
its vast size will be in its prime when our insignificant earth
is cold and dead and no longer capable of supporting life! Think
also of the indescribable blessing to the congested communities
of Europe and America, to find an unlimited outlet here! Mars is
already past its prime, and Venus scarcely habitable, but in
Jupiter we have a new promised land, compared with which our
earth is a pygmy, or but little more than microscopic."
"I see," said Ayrault, "that the possibilities here have no
limit; but I do not see how you can compare it to the promised
land, since, till we undertook this journey, no one had even
thought of Jupiter as a habitable place."
"I trace the Divine promise," replied Bearwarden, "in what you
described to us on earth as man's innate longing and desire to
rise, and in the fact that the Almighty has given the race
unbounded expansiveness in very limited space. This would look
to me as the return of man to the garden of Eden through
intellectual development, for here every man can sit under his
own vine and fig-tree."
"It seems to me," said Cortlandt, "that no paradise or heaven
described in anything but the Bible compares with this.
According to Virgil's description, the joys on the banks of his
river Lethe must have been most sad and dreary, the general
idleness and monotony apparently being broken only by wrestling
matches between the children, while the rest strolled about with
laurel wreaths or rested in the shade. The pilot Palinurus, who
had been drowned by falling overboard while asleep, but who
before that had presumably done his duty, did not seem especially
happy; while the harsh, resentful disposition evidently remained
unsoftened, for Dido became like a cliff of Marpesian marble when
AEneas asked to be forgiven, though he had doubtless considered
himself in duty bound to leave her, having been twice commanded
to do so by Mercury, the messenger of Jove. She, like the rest,
seems to have had no occupation, while the consciences of few
appear to have been sufficiently clear to enable them to enjoy
unbroken rest."
"The idleness in the spirit-land of all profane writers," added
Bearwarden, "has often surprised me too. Though I have always
recommended a certain amount of recreation for my staff--in fact,
more than I have generally had myself--an excess of it becomes a
bore. I think that all real progress comes through thorough
work. Why should we assume that progress ceases at death? I
believe in the verse that says, 'We learn here on earth those
things the knowledge of which is perfected in heaven.'"
"According to that," said Cortlandt, "you will some day be
setting the axis of heaven right, for in order to do work there
must be work to be done--a necessary corollary to which is that
extremely lonely.
They swept along steadily for fifty hours, having bright sunny
days and beautifully moonlit nights. They passed over finely
rounded hills and valleys and well- watered plains. As they
approached the ocean and its level the temperature rose, and
there was more moisture in the air. The plants and flowers also
increased in size, again resembling somewhat the large species
they had seen near the equator.
"This would be the place to live," said Bearwarden, looking at
iron mountains, silver, copper, and lead formations, primeval
forests, rich prairies, and regions evidently underlaid with coal
and petroleum, not to mention huge beds of aluminum clay, and
other natural resources, that made his materialistic mouth water.
"It would be joy and delight to develop industries here, with no
snow avalanches to clog your railroads, or icy blizzards to
paralyze work, nor weather that blights you with sun-strokes and
fevers. On our return to the earth we must organize a company to
run regular interplanetary lines. We could start on this globe
all that is best on our own. Think what boundless possibilities
may be before the human race on this planet, which on account of
its vast size will be in its prime when our insignificant earth
is cold and dead and no longer capable of supporting life! Think
also of the indescribable blessing to the congested communities
of Europe and America, to find an unlimited outlet here! Mars is
already past its prime, and Venus scarcely habitable, but in
Jupiter we have a new promised land, compared with which our
earth is a pygmy, or but little more than microscopic."
"I see," said Ayrault, "that the possibilities here have no
limit; but I do not see how you can compare it to the promised
land, since, till we undertook this journey, no one had even
thought of Jupiter as a habitable place."
"I trace the Divine promise," replied Bearwarden, "in what you
described to us on earth as man's innate longing and desire to
rise, and in the fact that the Almighty has given the race
unbounded expansiveness in very limited space. This would look
to me as the return of man to the garden of Eden through
intellectual development, for here every man can sit under his
own vine and fig-tree."
"It seems to me," said Cortlandt, "that no paradise or heaven
described in anything but the Bible compares with this.
According to Virgil's description, the joys on the banks of his
river Lethe must have been most sad and dreary, the general
idleness and monotony apparently being broken only by wrestling
matches between the children, while the rest strolled about with
laurel wreaths or rested in the shade. The pilot Palinurus, who
had been drowned by falling overboard while asleep, but who
before that had presumably done his duty, did not seem especially
happy; while the harsh, resentful disposition evidently remained
unsoftened, for Dido became like a cliff of Marpesian marble when
AEneas asked to be forgiven, though he had doubtless considered
himself in duty bound to leave her, having been twice commanded
to do so by Mercury, the messenger of Jove. She, like the rest,
seems to have had no occupation, while the consciences of few
appear to have been sufficiently clear to enable them to enjoy
unbroken rest."
"The idleness in the spirit-land of all profane writers," added
Bearwarden, "has often surprised me too. Though I have always
recommended a certain amount of recreation for my staff--in fact,
more than I have generally had myself--an excess of it becomes a
bore. I think that all real progress comes through thorough
work. Why should we assume that progress ceases at death? I
believe in the verse that says, 'We learn here on earth those
things the knowledge of which is perfected in heaven.'"
"According to that," said Cortlandt, "you will some day be
setting the axis of heaven right, for in order to do work there
must be work to be done--a necessary corollary to which is that