us, and alighted on Venus. Here
seas, mountains, forests, lakes, and meadows were one vast garden, in
which the bloom and verdure of all worlds seemed to find a home. Here
were realized the dreams of sculptors and painters, in the graceful
forms and exquisite faces of the women, and the splendid strength and
godlike beauty of the men. A brief glance was sufficient to show me
that the moving spring of all the civilization of this radiant planet
was the love of Nature and Art united. There were no wars--for there
were no different nations. All the inhabitants were like one vast
family; they worked for one another, and vied with each other in paying
homage to those of the loftiest genius among them. They had one supreme
Monarch to whom they all rendered glad obedience; and he was a Poet,
ready to sacrifice his throne with joy as soon as his people should
discover a greater than he. For they all loved not the artist but the
Art; and selfishness was a vice unknown. Here, none loved or were
wedded save those who had spiritual sympathies, and here, too, no
creature existed who did not believe in and worship the Creator. The
same state of things existed in Jupiter, the planet we next visited,
where everything was performed by electricity. Here persons living
hundreds of miles apart could yet converse together with perfect ease
through an electric medium; ships ploughed the seas by electricity;
printing, an art of which the dwellers on Earth are so proud, was
accomplished by electricity--in fact, everything in the way of science,
art, and invention known to us was also known in Jupiter, only to
greater perfection, because tempered and strengthened by an electric
force which never failed. From Jupiter, Azul guided me to many other
fair and splendid worlds--yet none of them were Paradise; all had some
slight drawback--some physical or spiritual ailment, as it were, which
had to be combated with and conquered. All the inhabitants of each star
longed for something they had not--something better, greater, and
higher--and therefore all had discontent. They could not realize their
best desires in the state of existence they then were, therefore they
all suffered disappointment. They were all compelled to work in some
way or another; they were all doomed to die. Yet, unlike the dwellers
on Earth, they did not, because their lives were more or less
constrained and painful, complain of or deny the goodness of God--on
the contrary, they bel