The Blindmans World | Page 8

he added, as I did not at once speak, "that I shall not offend
you by saying we find them also objectionable. Your literature
possesses in general an interest for us in the picture it presents of the
curiously inverted life which the lack of foresight compels you to lead.
It is a study especially prized for the development of the imagination,
on account of the difficulty of conceiving conditions so opposed to
those of intelligent beings in general. But our women do not read your
romances. The notion that a man or woman should, ever conceive the
idea of marrying a person other than the one whose husband or wife he

or she is destined to be is profoundly shocking to our habits of thought.
No doubt you will say that such instances are rare among you, but if
your novels are faithful pictures of your life, they are at least not
unknown. That these situations are inevitable under the conditions of
earthly life we are well aware, and judge you accordingly; but it is
needless that the minds of our maidens should be pained by the
knowledge that there anywhere exists a world where such travesties
upon the sacredness of marriage are possible.
"There is, however, another reason why we discourage the use of your
books by our young people, and that is the profound effect of sadness,
to a race accustomed to view all things in the morning glow of the
future, of a literature written in the past tense and relating exclusively
to things that are ended."
"And how do you write of things that are past except in the past tense?"
I asked.
"We write of the past when it is still the future, and of course in the
future tense," was the reply. "If our historians were to wait till after the
events to describe them, not alone would nobody care to read about
things already done, but the histories themselves would probably be
inaccurate; for memory, as I have said, is a very slightly developed
faculty with us, and quite too indistinct to be trustworthy. Should the
Earth ever establish communication with us, you will find our histories
of interest; for our planet, being smaller, cooled and was peopled ages
before yours, and our astronomical records contain minute accounts of
the Earth from the time it was a fluid mass. Your geologists and
biologists may yet find a mine of information here."
In the course of our further conversation it came out that, as a
consequence of foresight, some of the commonest emotions of human
nature are unknown on Mars. They for whom the future has no mystery
can, of course, know neither hope nor fear. Moreover, every one being
assured what he shall attain to and what not, there can be no such thing
as rivalship, or emulation, or any sort of competition in any respect;
and therefore all the brood of heart-burnings and hatreds, engendered
on Earth by the strife of man with man, is unknown to the people of

Mars, save from the study of our planet. When I asked if there were not,
after all, a lack of spontaneity, of sense of freedom, in leading lives
fixed in all details beforehand, I was reminded that there was no
difference in that respect between the lives of the people of Earth and
of Mars, both alike being according to God's will in every particular.
We knew that will only after the event, they before,--that was all. For
the rest, God moved them through their wills as He did us, so that they
had no more dense of compulsion in what they did than we on Earth
have in carrying out an anticipated line of action, in cases where our
anticipations chance to be correct. Of the absorbing interest which the
study of the plan of their future lives possessed for the people of Mars,
my companion spoke eloquently. It was, he said, like the fascination to
a mathematician of a most elaborate and exquisite demonstration, a
perfect algebraical equation, with the glowing realities of life in place
of figures and symbols.
When I asked if it never occurred to them to wish their futures different,
he replied that such a question could only have been asked by one from
the Earth. No one could have foresight, or clearly believe that God had
it, without realizing that the future is as incapable of being changed as
the past. And not only this, but to foresee events was to foresee their
logical necessity so clearly that to desire them different was as
impossible as seriously to wish that two and two made five instead of
four. No person could ever thoughtfully wish anything different, for so
closely are all things, the small with the