The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the MoonDefoe, Daniel
Science
The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon
Defoe, Daniel
Fantasy fiction; Interplanetary voyages -- Fiction; Moon -- Fiction; Political fiction; Satire
There was an another unhappiness in this Case, which made the Matter
yet more confus'd, and that was, that the Souldiers had generally no
gust to this War.--- This was an odd Case; for those sort of
Gentlemen, especially in the World in the Moon, don't use to enquire
into the Justice of the Case they Fight for, but they reckon 'tis
their Business to go where they are sent, and kill any Body they are
order'd to kill, leaving their Governors to answer for the Justice of
it; but there was another Reason to be given why the Men of the Sword
were so averse, and always talk't coldly of the fighting Part, and
tho' the Northern Men call'd it fear, yet I cannot joyn with them in
that, for to fear requires Thinking; and some of our Solunarians are
absolutely protected from the first, because they never meddle with
the last, except when they come to the Engine, and therefore 'tis
plain it could not proceed from Fear.
It has puzzl'd the most discerning Heads of the Age, to give a Reason
from whence this Aversion proceeded, and various Judgments have been
given of it.
The Nolunarians jested with them, and when they talk't of Fighting,
bad them look back into History, and examine what they ever made of a
Nolunarian War, and whether they had not been often well beaten, and
sent short home, bid them have a care of catching a Tartar, as we
call it, and always made themselves merry with it.
They banter'd the Solunarians too, about the Fears and Terrors they
were under, from their Arming themselves, and putting themselves in a
posture of Defence,----- When it was easy to see by the nature of the
thing, that their Design was not a War, but a Union upon just
Conditions, that it was a plain Token that they design'd either to
put some affront upon the Nolunarians, to deny them some just Claims,
or to impose something very Provoking upon them more than they had
yet done, that they were so exceeding fearful of an Invasion from
them.
Tho' these were sufficient to pass for Reasons in other Cases, yet it
could not be so here, but I saw there must be something else in it.
As I was thus wondering at this unusual backwardness of the
Souldiers, I enquir'd a little farther into the meaning of it, and
quickly found the Reason was plain, there was nothing to be got by
it, that People were Brave, Desperate and Poor, the Country Barren,
Mountainous and Empty, so that in short there would be nothing but
Blows, and Souldiers Fellows to be had, and I always observ'd that
Souldiers never care to be knockt on the Head, and get nothing by the
Bargain.
In short, I saw plainly the Reasons that prompted the Solunarians to
Insult their Neighbours of the North, were more deriv'd from the
regret at their Establishing Crolianism, than at any real Causes they
had given, or indeed were in a condition to give them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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