air
from the Underground Fields; but whether they gat any change or newness
of air from the Night Land, I have no knowledge; and do lament that I
have no sure knowing. Yet, as you shall believe, I could surely write an
hundred books upon that Wonder of the Future, and be still lacking in
the half of all that there is to be told; and so do I try to have
courage to this my task, and to have no over-trouble, because that I do
tell but a little of a Great Tale.

And here in this place will I set down how that the Peoples of the
Pyramid were greater to the chest, methinks, than we of this age; but
yet do I have no oversurety in the matter; for well it may be that the
Reason of _this_ age doth blind within me somewhat the Knowledge that I
have concerning _that_; for, in verity, is it not but a natural thing to
believe those Peoples to be great of the chest, so that they should make
a proper dealing with the thin air of that place and that time? And yet,
as I do strive to make plain unto you, because that this thing should
be, by the making of my Reason, I do the more distrust that Reason
shall make foolish my Knowledge; for even a fool should suppose that
which I have told; and the truth may be even otherwise.

Yet that the Peoples of the _Upper_ Cities had great chests, I do well
know; for this was a common knowledge; even as we of this age do
acknowledge the Peoples of Africa to be of blackness, or those of
Patagonia to be of great stature. And by this one thing should any know
a man of the Upper Cities, from a man of the Lower Cities. And because
that there grew this difference among the Peoples, there had been once,
as any could learn from the Histories, a plan whereby the Peoples should
be moved upward and downward through the great height of the Mighty
Pyramid, from this city unto that. Yet had it met with great disfavour;
and was put out of force; and this is easy to be seen as the natural way
of the human heart.

And here it doth occur unto me that it was like enough to be a plan for
health, beside of training of the mind, that each youth and maid was put
to travel through all the cities of the Mighty Pyramid; the which did
take three years and two hundred and twenty-five days, as I have told
before this. For by this plan, were they made to breathe the air of
every height, and this, mayhaps, unto the good of their developing. And
they also to discover that air which was best to their need.

And concerning the air