_Earth_. Which are the more numerous among your people, virtues or vices? _Moon_. Vices, by a long way. _Earth_. Does pleasure or pain predominate? _Moon_. Pain is infinitely more prevalent. _Earth_. And your inhabitants, are they mostly happy or unhappy? _Moon_. So unhappy that I would not exchange my lot with the happiest of them. _Earth_. It is the same here. I wonder why we differ so much in other things, yet agree in this. _Moon_. I am also like you in shape, I rotate like you, and am illumined by the same sun. It is no more wonderful that we should resemble each other in these things, than that we should possess common failings; because evil is as common to all the planets of the universe, or at least of the solar system, as rotundity, movement, and light. And if you could speak loud enough for Uranus or Saturn, or any other planet, to hear you, and were to ask them if they contained unhappiness, and whether pleasure or pain predominated, each would answer as I have done. I speak from experience, for I have already questioned Venus and Mercury, to whom I am now and then nearer than you. I have also asked certain comets which have passed by me; they all replied to the same effect. I firmly believe even the sun and every star would make the same response. _Earth_. Still I am very hopeful. In future I trust men will permit me to experience much happiness. _Moon_. Hope as much as you please. I will answer for it you may hope for ever. _Earth_. Ha! Did you hear that? These men and animals of mine are making an uproar. It is night on the side from which I am speaking to you, and at first they were all asleep. But, thanks to our conversation, they are now wide awake, and very frightened. _Moon_. And here, on the other side, you see it is day. _Earth_. Yes. Now I do not wish to terrify my people, or interrupt their sleep, which is the best thing they possess; so let us postpone conversation until another opportunity. Adieu, and good-day to you. _Moon_. Adieu. Good-night. [Footnote 1: See German newspapers of March 1824, for particulars of the discoveries attributed to Gruithuisen.] [Footnote 2: See Macrobius, _Saturnal_: lib. 3. cap. 8; Tertullian, _Apolog_., cap. 15. The moon was also honoured as the god moon. In the German language moon is masculine.] [Footnote 3: See Menander, lib. 1. cap. 15, _in Rhetor_, graec. veter.] [Footnote 4: Athen: lib. 2. _ed. Casaub_. p. 57.] [Footnote 5: Antonio di Ulloa. See Carli, _Lettere Americane_, par. 4. lett. 7. Milan, 1784.] _THE WAGER OF PROMETHEUS._