The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars: Being the Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey DoddGratacap, L. P. (Louis Pope)
Science
The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars: Being the Posthumous Papers of Bradford Torrey Dodd
Gratacap, L. P. (Louis Pope)
Mars (Planet) -- Fiction; Science fiction
It has been my task during these last weeks of life to write this
account of these wonderful experiences, and to leave them to the world
as an assurance--to how many will it give a new delight in living, to
how many will it remove the bitterness of living, to how many may it
bring resignation and hope--that the blight of Death is only an incident
in a continuous renewal of Life.
(End of Mr. Dodd's MS.)
Note by Mr. August Bixby Dodan.
Mr. Dodd died January 20, 1895. He never recovered from the severe shock
caused by hemorrhage, after receiving the second message from his father
and recorded above. He appreciated the imminence of death acutely, and
struggled to complete, as he has, the narrative of his life. My daughter
was not again seen by Mr. Dodd, though he received several letters from
her, which were found beneath his pillow after his demise.
I was with Mr. Dodd constantly during the latter days of his illness,
and then promised him that I should secure the publication of his
remarkable story.
I am not willing to hazard any conjecture as to the more extraordinary
features of this narrative. I can very positively, however, affirm my
complete confidence in Mr. Dodd's honesty. I knew both his father and
himself very well, and through a long intimacy found them both
consistently conforming to a very high type of character, courage, and
intellectual integrity.
The MS. of Mr. Dodd was handed to me by himself, and I recall with a
pathetic interest his smile of appreciative gratitude as I received it,
and gave him my earnest assurance that it should be printed, and that
the world would be made acquainted with his experiments and their
results.
Mr. Dodd was the residuary legatee of his father, and his own will made
during his last sickness, appointed me as his executor. My daughter was
made his sole heir, with two exceptions; small amounts in favor of his
assistants--Jeb Jobson and Andrew Clarke were mentioned in his will--and
these sums have been paid by myself to each.
A series of extraordinary misfortunes, for which I am myself measurably
to blame, resulted in the complete disappearance of the fortune
inherited by my daughter. Her own death and that of my wife, following
upon this disaster, though in no way connected with it, obliterated--and
here again I admit a very grievous culpability--the remembrance of the
MS. of Mr. Dodd and my own promises as to its publication.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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