It is a land of Law--for whatever is, is under the law--but its laws all, in some strange way, differ from ours. Their geometry is different because their space has a curve in it so that all their planes are cylinders; and their law of Gravitation is not according to the law of inverse squares, and there are four-and-twenty primary colours instead of only three. Most of the fantastic things of our science are commonplaces there, and all our earthly science would seem to them the maddest dreaming. There are no flowers upon their plants, for instance, but jets of coloured fire. That, of course, will seem mere nonsense to you because you do not understand Most of what the Angel told the Vicar, indeed the Vicar could not realise, because his own experiences, being only of this world of matter, warred against his understanding. It was too strange to imagine. What had jolted these twin universes together so that the Angel had fallen suddenly into Sidderford, neither the Angel nor the Vicar could tell. Nor for the matter of that could the author of this story. The author is concerned with the facts of the case, and has neither the desire nor the confidence to explain them. Explanations are the fallacy of a scientific age. And the cardinal fact of the case is this, that out in Siddermorton Park, with the glory of some wonderful world where there is neither sorrow nor sighing, still clinging to him, on the 4th of August 1895, stood an Angel, bright and beautiful, talking to the Vicar of Siddermorton about the plurality of worlds. The author will swear to the Angel, if need be; and there he draws the line. VIII. "I have," said the Angel, "a most unusual feeling--_here_. Have had since sunrise. I don't remember ever having any feeling--_here_ before." "Not pain, I hope," said the Vicar. "Oh no! It is quite different from that--a kind of vacuous feeling." "The atmospheric pressure, perhaps, is a little different," the Vicar began, feeling his chin. "And do you know, I have also the most curious sensations in my mouth--almost as if--it's so absurd!--as if I wanted to stuff things into it." "Bless me!" said the Vicar. "Of course! You're hungry!" "Hungry!" said the Angel. "What's that?" "Don't you eat?" "Eat! The word's quite new to me." "Put food into your mouth, you know. One has to here. You will soon learn. If you don't, you get thin and miserable, and suffer a great deal--_pain_, you know--and finally you die." "Die!" said the Angel. "That's another strange word!" "It's not strange here. It means leaving off, you know," said the Vicar. "We never leave off," said the Angel. "You don't know what may happen to you in this world," said the Vicar, thinking him over. "Possibly if you are feeling hungry, and can feel pain and have your wings broken, you may even have to die before you get out of it again. At anyrate you had better try eating. For my own part--ahem!--there are many more disagreeable things."