In my earlier years I have felt the cold blasts and torrid heats of other climes. I now rest myself in the happy satisfaction that I have found in this equable temperature and agreeable surroundings a place where one may look upon life as a blessing. I have acquired enough knowledge of some of the sciences to make an instrument or two of service to me, and I take especial interest in my telescope of three inches aperture, in the use of which I spend many an hour which otherwise might hang heavily on my hands. I have also a good microscope and field glass. Through the latter I bring to view the distant hillsides and mountain tops, observing, frequently, groups of deer grazing tranquilly, and at times a family of panthers gamboling on the green carpet of an opening, or an eagle feeding her young upon the inaccessible brink of a precipice; and on rarer occasions, a bear complacently munching acorns under some prolific old oak a mile away. My microscope has revealed to me a world of wonders. I have discovered by it the limitable range of our senses, and how far below as well as above us the infinite extends. I grope about in the darkness of my understanding between an atom and the outside limit of the stars, every step toward either showing an increase of distance. These things I pursue, not with the spirit and application of a student, but rather for the entertainment which they furnish and the meditation they invoke. I have learned all that is known of the motions and eccentricities of heavenly bodies within my telescopic vision, and I never look upon them without rapture. What are all other shows to this? How many of these countless worlds are inhabited? What beings are upon them? How do they compare with us? Has it been given to them to comprehend eternity? Is knowledge with them intuitive or acquired? Thus do I lose myself in these bewildering fancies. It may appear that I have avoided my share in the cares and duties of human association. If I have, it is from no lack of sympathy with my kind. I look upon my fellow-men from my distant and somewhat isolated point of view, without the usual diversion of active affairs, and both my pity and admiration are aroused. The sufferings and sorrows of my kind seem appalling to me from this position, while their heroism in the struggle for knowledge seems to me grand beyond expression. I feel myself in the midst of civilization, and yet apart from it. If I have been a loser from that lack of social attrition which arouses the activities of thought, it is, nevertheless, certain that I have not been submitted to a combination of those influences which render an error plausible. The opinions and thoughts of the world come to me, and I pass them in review with a full sense of the fallibility of individual opinion, as well as an abiding faith in the steady approach of that collective truth, which, sooner or later, will overspread the world. THE MAN FROM MARS. CHAPTER I.