ar. 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 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