"To be in a condition to understand the infinite diversity displayed in the different phases of creation," she continued, "it is necessary to cast aside all terrestrial feelings and ideas. Just as the species of your planet have changed in succeeding ages from the uncouth creatures of the first geological periods to the appearance of man, and as even now the animal and vegetable population of the Earth is still composed of the most widely varying forms, from man to the coral, from bird to fish, from an elephant to a butterfly, so on an incomparably vaster scale the forces of Nature have given birth to an infinite diversity of beings and things throughout the innumerable worlds of heaven. The form of its occupant is the result in each world of some element peculiar to that globe,--substance, heat, light, electricity, density, weight. Shape, functions, the number of the senses,--you have but five, and they are rather poor ones,--depend on the vital conditions of each sphere. Life is earthly on the Earth, Martial on Mars, Saturnian on Saturn, Neptunian on Neptune,--that is to say, appropriate to each habitation; or, to express it better, more strictly speaking, produced and developed by each world according to its organic condition, and following a primordial law which all Nature obeys,--the law of progress." [Illustration] While she was speaking I had watched the flight of the aerial creatures toward the city of flowers, and saw with astonishment that the plants were moving, raising or lowering themselves to receive them. The green sun had sunk beneath the horizon, and the yellow sun had risen in the sky; the landscape was suffused with a fairy-like tinge, over which hung an enormous half-green, half-orange moon. Then the infinite melody which had been filling the air died away, and amid a profound silence I heard a song arise from so pure a voice that no human tones could be compared with it. "What a marvellous system!" I cried,--"a world illumined by such glowing lights! It is having a close view of double, triple, and multiple stars." [Illustration] "Splendid suns those stars," she answered, "gracefully united in the bonds of a mutual attraction; from the Earth you see them cradled two and two on the bosom of the sky, always beautiful, pure, and luminous. Hanging in the infinite, they lean to each other, but never touch, as though their union, more moral than material, were ordered by an invisible and superior power, and following harmonious curves, they gravitate in cadence around each other,--celestial couples which blossomed at the spring-time of creation in the constellated meadows of infinity. While simple suns like yours shine in the deserts of space solitary, fixed, and undisturbed, double and multiple suns seem to enliven the silent regions of the eternal void by their motion, color, and life. These sidereal time-keepers mark the centuries and eras of other worlds for you.