The more brilliant stars were already lighting up the sky. I recognized Arcturus with its golden rays, Vega so white and pure, the seven stars of the Septentrion, and several of the zodiacal constellations. The evening star, the new vesper, was shining in the constellation of the Fishes. After having studied its position in the heavens for a few moments, and finding out by the constellations where I was myself; after examining the two satellites and reflecting on the lightness of my own body,--I was convinced that I was on the planet Mars, and that the beautiful evening star was--the Earth! * * * * * [Illustration] My eyes rested on it with that feeling of mournful love which thrills the fibres of our hearts when our thoughts fly away to a beloved object from whom we are separated by cruel distance; for a long time I looked at that fatherland where so many different feelings meet and jostle each other, and I thought,-- "What a pity it is that the numberless human beings living on that little habitation do not know where they are! That little Earth is most beautiful thus lighted up by the Sun, with its microscopic moon which looks like a speck beside it. Borne through the invisible by the divine laws of attraction, a floating atom in the harmony of the skies, it fills its place and hovers overhead like an angelic island! But its inhabitants are unaware of it! Singular humanity! They find the Earth too wide, so divide themselves up into flocks, and spend their time shooting one another. In that angelic isle there are as many soldiers as there are male inhabitants; they are all in arms against one another, and think it glorious to change the names of countries and the colors of flags, when it would have been so simple a matter to live peacefully. War is the favorite occupation of its nations, and the primordial education of the people. Aside from that, they spend their existence in adoring matter. They do not appreciate intellectual worth, are indifferent to the most wonderful problems of creation, and live an objectless life! What a pity! A citizen of Paris who had never heard the city's name mentioned, nor that of France, would not be more of a stranger than they in their own country. Ah! if they could but see the Earth from here! How delighted they would be to return to it, and how transformed all their ideas would be, both general and individual! Then they would at least know the land they live in; it would be a beginning,--they would study progressively the sublime truths about it, instead of vegetating under a horizonless fog, and after a while they would live the true life, the intellectual life." [Illustration] * * * * * "What honor he pays it! One would think he had left friends in that prison yonder!"