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 noble Martians as on earth, while the affection
of friendship 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 t