The Blindmans World

The Blindman's World, by
Edward Bellamy

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Title: The Blindman's World 1898
Author: Edward Bellamy
Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22701]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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BLINDMAN'S WORLD ***

Produced by David Widger

THE BLINDMAN'S WORLD
By Edward Bellamy
1898

The narrative to which this note is introductory was found among the
papers of the late Professor S. Erastus Larrabee, and, as an
acquaintance of the gentleman to whom they were bequeathed, I was
requested to prepare it for publication. This turned out a very easy task,
for the document proved of so extraordinary a character that, if
published at all, it should obviously be without change. It appears that
the professor did really, at one time in his life, have an attack of vertigo,
or something of the sort, under circumstances similar to those described
by him, and to that extent his narrative may be founded on fact How
soon it shifts from that foundation, or whether it does at all, the reader
must conclude for himself. It appears certain that the professor never
related to any one, while living, the stranger features of the experience
here narrated, but this might have been merely from fear that his
standing as a man of science would be thereby injured.
THE PROFESSOR'S NARRATIVE
At the time of the experience of which I am about to write, I was
professor of astronomy and higher mathematics at Abercrombie
College. Most astronomers have a specialty, and mine was the study of
the planet Mars, our nearest neighbor but one in the Sun's little family.
When no important celestial phenomena in other quarters demanded
attention, it was on the ruddy disc of Mars that my telescope was
oftenest focused. I was never weary of tracing the outlines of its
continents and seas, its capes and islands, its bays and straits, its lakes
and mountains. With intense interest I watched from week to week of
the Martial winter the advance of the polar ice-cap toward the equator,
and its corresponding retreat in the summer; testifying across the gulf
of space as plainly as written words to the existence on that orb of a
climate like our own. A specialty is always in danger of becoming an
infatuation, and my interest in Mars, at the time of which I write, had
grown to be more than strictly scientific. The impression of the
nearness of this planet, heightened by the wonderful distinctness of its
geography as seen through a powerful telescope, appeals strongly to the
imagination of the astronomer. On fine evenings I used to spend hours,
not so much critically observing as brooding over its radiant surface,
till I could almost persuade myself that I saw the breakers dashing on

the bold shore of Kepler Land, and heard the muffled thunder of
avalanches descending the snow-clad mountains of Mitchell. No
earthly landscape had the charm to hold my gaze of that far-off planet,
whose oceans, to the unpracticed eye, seem but darker, and its
continents lighter, spots and bands.
Astronomers have agreed in declaring that Mars is undoubtedly
habitable by beings like ourselves, but, as may be supposed, I was not
in a mood to be satisfied with considering it merely habitable. I allowed
no sort of question that it was inhabited. What manner of beings these
inhabitants might be I found a fascinating speculation. The variety of
types appearing in mankind even on this small Earth makes it most
presumptuous to assume that the denizens of different planets may not
be characterized by diversities far profounder. Wherein such diversities,
coupled with a general resemblance to man, might consist, whether in
mere physical differences or in different mental laws, in the lack of
certain of the great passional motors of men or the possession of quite
others, were weird themes of never-failing attractions for my mind. The
El Dorado visions with which the virgin mystery of the New World
inspired the early Spanish explorers were tame and prosaic compared
with the speculations which it was perfectly legitimate to indulge, when
the problem was the conditions of life on another planet.
It was the time of the year when Mars is most favorably situated for
observation, and, anxious not to lose an hour of the precious season, I
had spent the greater part of several successive nights in the
observatory. I believed that I had made some original observations as to
the trend