Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers, vol 2 | Page 2

in their mouths, so that,
generally, their geese count for swans, yet, after all, swans or geese, it
would be a pleasure to me, and really a curiosity, to see the planet that
could fancy herself entitled to sneeze at our Earth. And then, if she (viz.,
our Earth,) keeps but one Moon, even that (you know) is an advantage
as regards some people that keep none. There are people, pretty well

known to you and me, that can't make it convenient to keep even one
Moon. And so I come to my moral; which is this, that, to all appearance,
it is mere justice; but, supposing it were not, still it is our duty, (as
children of the Earth,) right or wrong, to stand up for our bonny young
mamma, if she is young; or for our dear old mother, if she is old;
whether young or old, to take her part against all comers; and to argue
through thick and thin, which (sober or not) I always attempt to do, that
she is the most respectable member of the Copernican System.
Meantime, what Kant understood by being old, is something that still
remains to be explained. If one stumbled, in the steppes of Tartary, on
the grave of a Megalonyx, and, after long study, had deciphered from
some pre-Adamite heiro-pothooks, the following epitaph:--'Hic jacet a
Megalonyx, or Hic jacet a Mammoth, (as the case might be,) who
departed this life, to the grief of his numerous acquaintance in the
seventeen thousandth year of his age,'--of course, one would be sorry
for him; because it must be disagreeable at any age to be torn away
from life, and from all one's little megalonychal comforts; that's not
pleasant, you know, even if one is seventeen thousand years old. But it
would make all the difference possible in your grief, whether the record
indicated a premature death, that he had been cut off, in fact, whilst just
stepping into life, or had kicked the bucket when full of honors, and
been followed to the grave by a train of weeping grandchildren. He had
died 'in his teens,' that's past denying. But still we must know to what
stage of life in a man, had corresponded seventeen thousand years in a
Mammoth. Now exactly this was what Kant desired to know about our
planet. Let her have lived any number of years that you suggest, (shall
we say if you please, that she is in her billionth year?) still that tells us
nothing about the period of life, the stage, which she may be supposed
to have reached. Is she a child, in fact, or is she an adult? And, if an
adult, and that you gave a ball to the Solar System, is she that kind of
person, that you would introduce to a waltzing partner, some fiery
young gentlemen like Mars, or would you rather suggest to her the sort
of partnership which takes place at a whist-table? On this, as on so
many other questions, Kant was perfectly sensible that people, of the
finest understandings, may and do take the most opposite views. Some
think that our planet is in that stage of her life, which corresponds to
the playful period of twelve or thirteen in a spirited girl. Such a girl,

were it not that she is checked by a sweet natural sense of feminine
grace, you might call a romp; but not a hoyden, observe; no horse-play;
oh, no, nothing of that sort. And these people fancy that earthquakes,
volcanoes, and all such little escapades will be over, they will, in
lawyer's phrase, 'cease and determine,' as soon as our Earth reaches the
age of maidenly bashfulness. Poor thing! It's quite natural, you know,
in a healthy growing girl. A little overflow of vivacity, a pirouette more
or less, what harm should that do to any of us? Nobody takes more
delight than I in the fawn-like sportiveness of an innocent girl, at this
period of life: even a shade of _espièglerie_ does not annoy me. But
still my own impressions incline me rather to represent the Earth as a
fine noble young woman, full of the pride which is so becoming to her
sex, and well able to take her own part, in case that, at any solitary
point of the heavens, she should come across one of those vulgar fussy
Comets, disposed to be rude and take improper liberties. These Comets,
by the way, are public nuisances, very much like the mounted
messengers of butchers in great cities, who are always at full gallop,
and moving upon such an infinity of angles to human shinbones, that
the final purpose of such boys (one of whom lately had the audacity
nearly to ride down the Duke of Wellington)