r is also a
motive power.

"'We have a medium of exchange, silver, and there are rich and poor with
us, but no poverty. There can be no armies nor navies. The government
carries on extensive works of improvement and keeps the canals and pays
its laborers. The government supports this City of Light and the people
here are paid for the number of spirits they care for and assist.
Happiness reigns on Mars, but it is a pensive happiness. We never,
because of the singular physiology of our bodies, can know the
boisterous and passionate joys of earth, neither do we know many of the
ills of the flesh. We have sickness and there are accidents. We have a
death, but it is like evaporation. We decline again after a long life to
the spirit stage and vanish. So there are partings here, and the old
sadness of the end as on earth; but the gaiety of children, the ambition
of youth, the devotion of parents is unknown.'

"His voice sank, he bent his head upon his hands, and a sort of tremor
ran through him, and when again he looked upon me his eyes shone with
moisture, and the hot tears ran down his cheeks. Memory might be
fleeting on Mars, but the loved ones of the earth were yet remembered,
and the abysses of the eternal void of space could never be crossed by
the wave of speech or recognition. This was the pathos of the Martian
life.

"I was shown by him, as the slowly arising sweetness of fatigue showed
itself within me, to a bedchamber of charming simplicity. The graceful
bedstead of the blue metal was covered with snowy covers, curtains hung
at the windows also white. The furniture of the room was of a sort of
pale, red wood obtained in the great Martian forests where the trees
known as the Ribi grow, whose leaves and flowers have a pink tint, which
in seasons of fruitage is more intense, and present enormous areas of
extraordinary beauty.

"This room was at the top of one of the many branching wings of this
composite astronomical laboratory. To reach my room we walked through
hallways all illuminated with the phosphorescent glowing balls while the
radiant patterns in the walls shone also with a pale beauty. These balls
possess a wonderful lighting power and besides their self-illumination
can be stimulated into the most intense brilliancy by electric currents
with which the Martians are profoundly acquainted. The electrical
displays on Mars surpass description and the waves of magnetism I am now
utilizing to send to you these