The Lady was the first of our party who was invited to look through the equatorial.Perhaps this world had proved so hard to her that she was pained to think that other worlds existed, to be homes of suffering and sorrow.Perhaps she was thinking it would be a happy change when she should leave this dark planet for one of those brighter spheres.She sighed, at any rate, but thanked the Young Astronomer for the beautiful sights he had shown her, and gave way to the next comer, who was That Boy, now in a state of irrepressible enthusiasm to see the Man in the Moon.He was greatly disappointed at not making out a colossal human figure moving round among the shining summits and shadowy ravines of the "spotty globe."The Landlady came next and wished to see the moon also, in preference to any other object.She was astonished at the revelations of the powerful telescope.Was there any live creatures to be seen on the moon? she asked.The Young Astronomer shook his head, smiling a little at the question.--Was there any meet'n'-houses? There was no evidence, he said, that the moon was inhabited.As there did not seem to be either air or water on its surface, the inhabitants would have a rather hard time of it, and if they went to meeting the sermons would be apt to be rather dry.If there were a building on it as big as York minster, as big as the Boston Coliseum, the great telescopes like Lord Rosse's would make it out.But it seemed to be a forlorn place; those who had studied it most agreed in considering it a "cold, crude, silent, and desolate" ruin of nature, without the possibility, if life were on it, of articulate speech, of music, even of sound.Sometimes a greenish tint was seen upon its surface, which might have been taken for vegetation, but it was thought not improbably to be a reflection from the vast forests of South America.
The ancients had a fancy, some of them, that the face of the moon was a mirror in which the seas and shores of the earth were imaged.Now we know the geography of the side toward us about as well as that of Asia, better than that of Africa.The Astronomer showed them one of the common small photographs of the moon.He assured them that he had received letters inquiring in all seriousness if these alleged lunar photographs were not really taken from a peeled orange.People had got angry with him for laughing at them for asking such a question.Then he gave them an account of the famous moon-hoax which came out, he believed, in 1835.It was full of the most bare-faced absurdities, yet people swallowed it all, and even Arago is said to have treated it seriously as a thing that could not well be true, for Mr.Herschel would have certainly notified him of these marvellous discoveries.The writer of it had not troubled himself to invent probabilities, but had borrowed his scenery from the Arabian Nights and his lunar inhabitants from Peter Wilkins.
After this lecture the Capitalist stepped forward and applied his eye to the lens.I suspect it to have been shut most of the time, for Iobserve a good many elderly people adjust the organ of vision to any optical instrument in that way.I suppose it is from the instinct of protection to the eye, the same instinct as that which makes the raw militia-man close it when he pulls the, trigger of his musket the first time.He expressed himself highly gratified, however, with what he saw, and retired from the instrument to make room for the Young Girl.
She threw her hair back and took her position at the instrument.
Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger explained the wonders of the moon to her,--Tycho and the grooves radiating from it, Kepler and Copernicus with their craters and ridges, and all the most brilliant shows of this wonderful little world.I thought he was more diffuse and more enthusiastic in his descriptions than he had been with the older members of the party.I don't doubt the old gentleman who lived so long on the top of his pillar would have kept a pretty sinner (if he could have had an elevator to hoist her up to him)longer than he would have kept her grandmother.These young people are so ignorant, you know.As for our Scheherezade, her delight was unbounded, and her curiosity insatiable.If there were any living creatures there, what odd things they must be.They could n't have any lungs, nor any hearts.What a pity! Did they ever die? How could they expire if they didn't breathe? Burn up? No air to burn in.Tumble into some of those horrid pits, perhaps, and break all to bits.She wondered how the young people there liked it, or whether there were any young people there; perhaps nobody was young and nobody was old, but they were like mummies all of them--what an idea --two mummies making love to each other! So she went on in a rattling, giddy kind of way, for she was excited by the strange scene in which she found herself, and quite astonished the Young Astronomer with her vivacity.All at once she turned to him.
Will you show me the double star you said I should see?
With the greatest pleasure,--he said, and proceeded to wheel the ponderous dome, and then to adjust the instrument, I think to the one in Andromeda, or that in Cygnus, but I should not know one of them from the other.
How beautiful!--she said as she looked at the wonderful object.---One is orange red and one is emerald green.
The young man made an explanation in which he said something about complementary colors.
Goodness!--exclaimed the Landlady.---What! complimentary to our party?
