Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
Next Morning about Nine a Clock, my Spirit came in, and told me that
he was come from Court, where [Illustration: bar 1] one of the Queens
Maids of Honour, had sent for him, and that she had enquired after me,
protesting that she still persisted in her Design to be as good as her
Word; that is, that with all her Heart she would follow me, if I would
take her along with me to the other World; "which exceedingly pleased
me," said he, "when I understood that the chief Motive which inclined
her to the Voyage, was to become Christian: And therefore, I have
promised to forward her Design, what lies in me; and for that end to
invent a Machine that may hold three or four, wherein you may mount to
day, both together, if you think fit. I'll go seriously set about the
performance of my Undertaking; and in the mean time, to entertain you,
during my Absence, I leave you here a Book, which heretofore I brought
with me from my Native Countrey; the Title of it is, _The States and
Empires of the Sun, with an Addition of the History of the Spark_.[1] I
also give you this, which I esteem much more; it is the great Work of
the Philosophers, composed by one of the greatest Wits of the Sun.[2]
He proves in it that all things are true, and shews the way of uniting
Physically the Truths of every Contradiction; as, for Example, That
White is Black, and Black White; that one may be, and not be at the
same time; that there may be a Mountain without a Valley; that nothing
is something, and that all things that are, are not; but observe,
that he proves all these unheard-of Paradoxes without any Captious or
Sophistical Argument."
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S FLYING MACHINE.--From a 17th Century
Engraving]
"When you are weary of Reading, you may Walk, or Converse with our
Landlord's Son, he has a very Charming Wit; but that which I dislike
in him is, that he is a little Atheistical. If he chance to Scandalize
you, or by any Argument shake your Faith, fail not immediately to come
and propose it to me, and I'll clear the Difficulties of it; any other,
but I, would enjoin you to break Company with him; but since he is
extreamly proud and conceited, I am certain he would take your flight
for a Defeat, and would believe your Faith to be grounded on no Reason,
if you refused to hear his."
Having said so, he left me; and no sooner was his back turned, but I
fell to consider attentively my Books and their Boxes, that's to say,
their Covers, which seemed to me to be wonderfully Rich; the one was
cut of a single Diamond, incomparably more resplendent than ours; the
second looked like a prodigious great Pearl, cloven in two. My Spirit
had translated those Books into the Language of that World; but because
I have none of their Print, I'll now explain to you the Fashion of
these two Volumes.
[Sidenote: Books in the Moon]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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