nt which results from
the contemplation of the harmonies of an organic world would involve
a lamentable loss? And may we not look to a spiritual concert of the
combined worlds and ALL their inhabitants in the presence of
their Creator as the highest conception of paradise?"--'Essay on
Classification,' sect. xvii. p. 97-99.

Chapter XV.

Kind to me as I found all in this household, the young daughter of my
host was the most considerate and thoughtful in her kindness. At her
suggestion I laid aside the habiliments in which I had descended
from the upper earth, and adopted the dress of the Vril-ya, with the
exception of the artful wings which served them, when on foot, as a
graceful mantle. But as many of the Vril-ya, when occupied in urban
pursuits, did not wear these wings, this exception created no marked
difference between myself and the race among whom I sojourned, and I was
thus enabled to visit the town without exciting unpleasant curiosity.
Out of the household no one suspected that I had come from the upper
world, and I was but regarded as one of some inferior and barbarous
tribe whom Aph-Lin entertained as a guest.

The city was large in proportion to the territory round it, which was of
no greater extent than many an English or Hungarian nobleman's estate;
but the whole if it, to the verge of the rocks which constituted its
boundary, was cultivated to the nicest degree, except where certain
allotments of mountain and pasture were humanely left free to the
sustenance of the harmless animals they had tamed, though not for
domestic use. So great is their kindness towards these humbler
creatures, that a sum is devoted from the public treasury for the
purpose of deporting them to other Vril-ya communities willing to
receive them (chiefly new colonies), whenever they become too numerous
for the pastures allotted to them in their native place. They do not,
however, multiply to an extent comparable to the ratio at which, with
us, animals bred for slaughter, increase. It seems a law of nature that
animals not useful to man gradually recede from the domains he occupies,
or even become extinct. It is an old custom of the various sovereign
states amidst which the race of the Vril-ya are distributed, to leave
between each state a neutral and uncultivated border-land. In the
instance of the community I speak of, this tract, being a ridge of
savage rocks, was impassable by foot, but was easily surmounted, whether
by