Mr. Oseba's Last DiscoveryBell, George W. (George William)
Science
Mr. Oseba's Last Discovery
Bell, George W. (George William)
New Zealand -- Description and travel; Voyages and travels
"How balmy the air! How grandly the old sun sweeps along the rim of
this great world! For one such scene New York would give a 'million,'
and every eye would dim with watching the face of the flaming wheel,
and every neck would ache, and every soul would shudder with awe. But,
would not the Shadowas like to see Old Sol passing over their heads
every twenty-four hours, and give them three-hundred and sixty-five
days during the year, instead of having him whirl about their heads,
hip high, giving one night seven months long, and but a hundred and
sixty days of variable length? But it's all in being used to things.
"Well, I must off to the meeting. I am invited to the platform, and I
shall have plenty to record this evening, for to-day is nineteen hours
long. Oh, how weird!
"Later, evening.
"What o'clock is it? I don't know. I know it was nineteen hours after
the old sun first flitted around Mt. Lena, that it finally retired, and
how can a 'new chum' keep track of his running on such erratic lines?
To make it more confusing, this is the self same old sun that mine eyes
have been looking upon for, lo! these thirty wasted years. Who would
have thought that sedate old watchman could ever play such pranks?
Then, too, on the same little old world! Am I waking? Am I sane, or is
this but a hideous delirium?
"I feel sure that all is unreal, that I am the sport of some jesting
destiny--but I will play my part; then, if the vision be not a mockery,
I will not have wasted too much time.
"What an eventful day! Yet, as long as it has been, or even seems to
have been, every hour has been crowded with bewildering incidents--only
bewildering to me, however, for how unlike the hurry, the confusion,
the bustle, the noise and hilarity seen on such occasions on the upper
crust! How different from a horse-race in England, an election-day in
France, or a Fourth of July in America!
"What a happy, orderly, handsome, and amiable people, these. Even their
Deities are amiable. Their temples of worship breathe, not only hope
for the future, but appreciation for the blessings of to-day. With
them, it is not a crown of glory afterwhile, but a living joy. Without
the sorrow of Gautama, the gods of this under-world are as loving and
as amiable. But why should not the Deities be amiable?
"'God made man,' the preacher saith,
'From a handful of dust, by a whiff of breath.'
'No,' say the sages, 'man made God,
From nothing at all, by creative nod;
Organ for organ, and limb for limb,
In the image of man, created he Him.
"These people evidently made their Gods, for they admit it. I wonder if
we made ours?"
Careful Leo!
"What a wonderful city is Eurania! What a wonderful country is
Cavitorus! What a wonderful people are the Shadowas!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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