The Blindmans World | Page 9

great, woven together by God
that to draw out the smallest thread would unravel creation through all
eternity.
While we had talked the afternoon had waned, and the sun had sunk
below the horizon, the roseate atmosphere of the planet imparting a
splendor to the cloud coloring, and a glory to the land and sea scape,
never paralleled by an earthly sunset. Already the familiar
constellations appearing in the sky reminded me how near, after all, I
was to the Earth, for with the unassisted eye I could not detect the
slightest variation in their position. Nevertheless, there was one wholly
novel feature in the heavens, for many of the host of asteroids which
circle in the zone between Mars and Jupiter were vividly visible to the

naked eye. But the spectacle that chiefly held my gaze was the Earth,
swimming low on the verge of the horizon. Its disc, twice as large as
that of any star or planet as seen from the Earth, flashed with a
brilliancy like that of Venus.
"It is, indeed, a lovely sight," said my companion, "although to me
always a melancholy one, from the contrast suggested between the
radiance of the orb and the benighted condition of its inhabitants. We
call it 'The Blindman's World.'" As he spoke he turned toward a curious
structure which stood near us, though I had not before particularly
observed it.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It is one of our telescopes," he replied. "I am going to let you take a
look, if you choose, at your home, and test for yourself the powers of
which I have boasted;" and having adjusted the instrument to his
satisfaction, he showed me where to apply my eye to what answered to
the eye-piece.
I could not repress an exclamation of amazement, for truly he had
exaggerated nothing. The little college town which was my home lay
spread out before me, seemingly almost as near as when I looked down
upon it from my observatory windows. It was early morning, and the
village was waking up. The milkmen were going their rounds, and
workmen, with their dinner-pails, where hurrying along the streets. The
early train was just leaving the railroad station. I could see the puffs
from the smoke-stack, and the jets from the cylinders. It was strange
not to hear the hissing of the steam, so near I seemed. There were the
college buildings on the hill, the long rows of windows flashing back
the level sunbeams. I could tell the time by the college clock. It struck
me that there was an unusual bustle around the buildings, considering
the earliness of the hour. A crowd of men stood about the door of the
observatory, and many others were hurrying across the campus in that
direction. Among them I recognized President Byxbee, accompanied
by the college janitor. As I gazed they reached the observatory, and,
passing through the group about the door, entered the building. The
president was evidently going up to my quarters. At this it flashed over

me quite suddenly that all this bustle was on my account. I recalled
how it was that I came to be on Mars, and in what condition I had left
affairs in the observatory. It was high time I were back there to look
after myself.
Here abruptly ended the extraordinary document which I found that
morning on my desk. That it is the authentic record of the conditions of
life in another world which it purports to be I do not expect the reader
to believe. He will no doubt explain it as another of the curious freaks
of somnambulism set down in the books. Probably it was merely that,
possibly it was something more. I do not pretend to decide the question.
I have told all the facts of the case, and have no better means for
forming an opinion than the reader. Nor do I know, even if I fully
believed it the true account it seems to be, that it would have affected
my imagination much more strongly than it has. That story of another
world has, in a word, put me out of joint with ours. The readiness with
which my mind has adapted itself to the Martial point of view
concerning the Earth has been a singular experience. The lack of
foresight among the human faculties, a lack I had scarcely thought of
before, now impresses me, ever more deeply, as a fact out of harmony
with the rest of our nature, belying its promise,--a moral mutilation, a
deprivation arbitrary and unaccountable. The spectacle of a race
doomed to walk backward, beholding only what has gone by, assured
only of what is past and dead,' comes over me from time to time with a
sadly fantastical