We are innocently disposed to believe that the human organism is perfect, and leaves nothing on earth to be desired; but for all that have we not often regretted being obliged to listen, in spite of ourselves, to disagreeable words, absurd speeches, a sermon verbose with emptiness, bad music, slander, or calumny? Our grammars vainly pretend that we can "close our ears" to these speeches; unfortunately there is no such thing. You cannot shut your ears as you can your eyes. I was very much surprised to find a planet where Nature had not forgotten this salutary provision. As we stopped there for an instant, Urania pointed out ears which closed like eyelids. "There is very much less anger and vexation here than with you," said she; "but the wranglings of political parties are much more sharp and vociferous, adversaries are unwilling to listen to disputes, and succeed effectually, notwithstanding the speakers may be most loquacious." On another world, in which phosphorus plays a large part, whose atmosphere is constantly electrified, whose temperature is very high, and where the inhabitants have no sufficient reason for inventing wearing apparel, certain passions manifest themselves by the illumination of some part of the body. It is the same thing on a large scale that we see in our terrestrial meadows on a smaller one in mild summer evenings when glow-worms silently manifest themselves, and then waste away in a soft, amorous flame. It is very curious to observe the appearance of these luminous couples in the evening in populous cities. The color of the phosphorescence differs in the sexes, and its intensity varies with the age and temperament. The stronger sex burns with a more or less ardent red flame, and the gentler sex with a bluish light, sometimes pale and diaphanous. Our glow-worms, however, give but a very faint and rudimentary idea respecting the nature of the impressions experienced by these peculiar beings. I could not believe my eyes when we were passing through the atmosphere of this planet. But I was still more surprised on arriving at the satellite of this unique world. That was a solitary moon, lighted by a kind of twilight sun. A sombre valley lay before us. From the trees scattered on both slopes of the valley hung human beings enveloped in shrouds. They had tied themselves to the branches by their hair, and were sleeping in the deepest silence. What I had taken for grave-clothes was a covering formed from the growth of their bleached and tangled locks. As I was wondering at this marvellous spectacle Urania told me this was their usual mode of interment and resurrection. Yes, on this world human beings enjoyed the organic faculty of those insects which have the gift of going to sleep in a chrysalis state, and metamorphosing themselves into winged butterflies. It is like a double human race; and the beings in the first phase, even the coarsest and most material of them, need but to die to rise again in