Part 6 (2/2)
”The photograph of each visitor is taken, and a process quite like our collodion or wet process is used. The portraits are more permanent than with the perishable dry plates. It is a curious thing to learn that for 100 years these records and pictures have been taken, and that there are on Mars hosts of unidentified spirits, who entered its wondrous precincts before that time.
”The duration of life in Mars is very various. There seems here an undiscovered law, and a group of observers in Mars are to-day trying to penetrate this mystery. It is a.s.serted that there is evidence that Egyptians of the ante-Christian epoch are to-day living in Mars, but their identification is now almost impossible. On the other hand, it is a fact ascertained and recorded that in one hundred years many Martians die, while others scarcely survive the ordinary limit of our human life on earth. This gives a great interest to Martian society. Here for ages have possibly flown disembodied spirits from our earth; in their reincarnation they have a.s.sumed the features and faculties of youth; they have also, under changed conditions of life, and moderated functions and activity in living, been physically, perhaps mentally, modified. Their own memory of their past on Earth, however vivid, and then in exceptional beings, has slowly disappeared or left only vague cloud-like waverings and congeries of reminiscences.
”So that great human souls that have entered Mars in the early centuries of our earth's historic periods may be living here almost unrecognized.
They have drifted into occupations suitable to their genius in some of the many great cities, and no vestige of their past remains. The system of the Registeries is scarcely a century old, and while now from the marvellous industry and persistence of the investigators, the great ones of the neighboring worlds, and even the most obscure are in some cognizable way identified, yet from the long ages before that there is almost no authentic registration.
”This is more to be regretted as the law of life on the planet might then be better formulated. Essentially it seems necessary for existence here to be in unison with the conditions; contentment means longevity.
Of course, the remarkable men and women I saw at the Patenta were all well known. They had made themselves known, and not only were their earthly names and lives put down on the pages of the Registers, but all their knowledge had been as inquisitively and scrupulously impressed.
Nor is this all. From many worlds and earths there is flowing constantly to this planet new, strange, wonderful beings. Here is a cosmos of races, tastes, nationalities, destinies, civilizations, and instincts, from whose amalgamated and fused vortices of tendency this marvellous life has been formed.
”However completely the mere memory of detail vanishes, the traits of nature remain, and these mingling beings present a kaleidoscope of contrasted or blending talents. But union of beings comes in here as in our States to combine all together and create this unique expression of social beauty, tenderness, scientific power, progress and spiritual exaltation. Marriage is here as with us, and love holds its deathless sway among the white and n.o.ble Martians as on earth, while the affection of friends.h.i.+p seems to weave every atom of society to every other atom in a social texture over which only moves the refining powers of thought and aspiration.
”Mars does indeed seem a sort of Paradise, for it is quite certain that the best, the truest, the deeper and emphatic souls come here; and while a sort of sin or social incompatibility is found here, and there are crimes, and while death and sickness and accidents occur here, as I have told you, yet these things have a moral or mental, rather than physical expression. At least, in a great measure, and they are rare. No!
accidents of matter pertain to Mars; its materiality is complete. As I send this to you I feel my warmth, the heat of my body, the expiration of my breath, the movements of my eyes, the beating of my heart, all, all, these bodily phenomena seem unchanged--their physiology is changed, their corporate reality seems the same, their corporeal consequences are different. But I cannot explain clearly this to you. Do I know it clearly myself?
”I was questioned by the Registeries, both of whom had come from the earth, though in them, as in all the less highly endowed, memory was fading. Because of this, Registeries quickly succeed each other, since the later arrivals from the other worlds are better adapted to elicit the information needed from the new spirits. And this applies to other worlds, to Mercury and Venus, etc., whose Registeries are, so far as possible, appointed from previous occupants of those spheres.
”The larger, far larger percentage of spirits come from the three planets, Mercury, Venus and the Earth; but there are singular inexplicable arrivals from distant stars, and of these the records are in many instances of extraordinary wonderfulness. I must not pause to recount this. I know it very imperfectly.
”My examiners had little to do. My memory seemed of great power, and I told them the story of our experiments, discoveries and our compact to communicate with each other. This portion of my story was listened to with admiration. Chapman, my guide, and the two Registeries leaped to their feet, exclaimed with delight and embraced each other in ecstacy.
'At last! At last!' cried out all of them, while hastily calling officers of the building to them they rapidly explained my singular announcement. It seemed to run like fire through the throngs. A great crowd was soon pressing in upon us on every side, while the Martian e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n '_Hi mitla_' rang in all directions. I was astounded. What was this strange excitement, and why had my simple tale awakened this fierce commotion?
”My guide noting my dismay and alarm, laughingly explained the reason of the confusion. 'For years and years,' he said, 'it has been hoped by the Martians to send some message to the Earth. We understand wireless telegraphy, we can bridge almost infinite distances with the monstrous waves of magnetic disturbances, it is possible for us to generate. We have bombarded the earth with magnetic waves, but no response, no single indication has been returned to us that our messages were received. Our knowledge of the earth language is complete, even our knowledge of the telegraphic codes is partially so. But we have hopelessly repeated, are even now repeating these efforts.
”'You, my friend, are the first man from Earth who tells us that wireless telegraphy is understood upon Earth, that receivers have been invented; but above all it amazes and transports us to know that you have perfected means, before leaving the Earth, to have such messages as you may deliver from Mars properly received. There is, though,' he exclaimed, as he turned to the eager, s.h.i.+ning faces about me, 'still a grave doubt whether our good friend can a.s.sure us of the ability of the _Earthlings_ to send us back any communication. They may be unable to force through this enormous distance waves of sufficient magnitude to reach us.'
”There was a loud murmur of disappointment, mingled with exclamations of dissent and reproach. Once more I was plied with questions, and then, my son, there came to me, singularly clouded in forgetfulness until that instant, the memory of that fruitless message which we received about a year before my death on Earth.
”I arose, and amid a hush of expectation excited by this motion, accompanied as it were with a gesture inviting silence, spoke aloud in English:
”'My friends, I recall a night in August, 1890, in the Earth's chronology, when my son and myself, then hoping against hope that the carefully adjusted receiver we had, would ever be called upon to herald a message from another world, were suddenly surprised to see and hear the register of our instrument move and sound. It was indeed animated by some extra terrestrial power. Could that power have come from your Mars; were we the first to receive one of your messages that you have so long been raining on the Earth?'
”I looked around in enthusiasm, and with a conscious sense of companions.h.i.+p, pride and affection. I do not think I was altogether understood, except by a few, but the contagion of my own pleasure seized the mult.i.tude, and a great melodious shout arose, while cries of '_Hi mitla_' echoed in the Hall, and then, carried away with an emotional impulse, these excited Martians broke into a song, a swinging chant, that brought to the doors of the room new accessions of spectators whose instantaneous sympathy was expressed by the added volume of sound they contributed, until beneath the vibrant power of the great chorus the building seemed itself to tremble.
”And then a curious and astounding thing happened. My old acquaintance, Chapman, leaped up in the dense cl.u.s.ters, and springing on a table shouted, 'To the Patenta.' The words seemed understood by almost all. I was seized by powerful arms, swung upon the shoulders of two splendid, vigorous youths. While by one impulse the throng surged through the doors in a sort of triumphal progress, I found myself moving in the midst of the excited populace up a broad avenue to the central hill of the city again, which was crowned by the many towers, halls, domes and aggregated arms and facades of the wonderful Patenta, the great communal home of Experiment and Observation.
”The clamor of our approach brought to the scene the dwellers in the houses and the wanderers in the streets. And amongst the great density of forms and faces I saw the phosph.o.r.escent figures of many forming spirits swept on in this friendly anarchy of delight and antic.i.p.ation.
”My son, as I send these words out into the ether-filled realms of s.p.a.ce across the millions of miles that intervene between that speck of light on which even now I know you lament my departure, and this new home of mine, which to you also is but a speck of light, I feel in a desperation of doubt that you will never hear them.
”How thrilled and awe-struck I became as I gazed around me, and looking over the surging mob beheld their mult.i.tudinous lineaments, the faces of the races of our earth, its many nations, the faces of men or women who had lived in Venus, in Mercury, in the fixed stars, perhaps, as we call those globes from whose lambent surface light reached the earth after the expiration of a century of years. What a beautiful exhilaration of feeling it imparted, these flushed and s.h.i.+ning faces, the liquid eyes of the south now charged with the fires of transporting expectation, the steady gaze of blue-eyed northerners firm and rapt and steadfast; the power of huge, colossal frames of muscle, the sinuous activity of spare and slender forms all attired in that consummate garb of blue and white, their caps of metal reflecting the light in cerulean l.u.s.tres.
”On, upward, we moved, impelled by an impulse quite indefinable but sufficient to condense about us by its contagion the Martian populace, quick, responsive, inquisitive, intelligent and excitable as children.
We were approaching the Patenta by an ever widening avenue, our rustling approach announced by a chant of vociferous and yet melodious notes.
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