"In her mind is but one thought,and in her heart is an image--that of the man before me.She loves you with all her soul.""My most eager wish is satisfied,and for the moment my heart is at rest,"replied Ayrault,as they turned their steps towards camp."Yet,such is my weakness by nature,that,ere twenty-four hours have passed I shall long to have you tell me again.""I have been in love myself,"replied the spirit,"and know the feeling;yet to be of the smallest service to you gives me far more happiness than it can give you.The mutual love in paradise exceeds even the lover's love on earth,for it is only those that loved and can love that are blessed.
"You can hardly realize,"the bishop continued,as they rejoined Bearwarden and Cortlandt,"the joy that a spirit in paradise experiences when,on reopening his eyes after passing death,which is but the portal,he finds himself endowed with sight that enables him to see such distances and with such distinctness.
The solar system,with this ringed planet,its swarm of asteroids,and its intra-Mercurial planets--one of which,Vulcan,you have already discovered--is a beautiful sight.The planets nearest the sun receive such burning rays that their surfaces are red-hot,and at the equator at perihelion are molten.These are not seen from the earth,because,rising or setting almost simultaneously with the sun,they are lost in its rays.The great planet beyond Neptune's orbit is perhaps the most interesting.This we call Cassandra,because it would be a prophet of evil to any visitor from the stars who should judge the solar system by it.This planet is nearly as large as Jupiter,being 80,000miles in diameter,but has a specific gravity lighter than Saturn.Bode's law,you know,says,Write down 0,3,6,12,24,48,96.Add 4to each,and get 4,7,10,16,28,52,100;and this series of numbers represents very nearly the relative distances of the planets from the sun.
According to this law,you would expect the planet next beyond Neptune to be about 5,000,000,000miles from the sun.But it is about 9,500,000,000,so that there is a gap between Neptune and Cassandra,as between Mars and Jupiter,except that in Cassandra's case there are no asteroids to show where any planet was;we must,then,suppose it is an exception to Bode's law,or that there was a planet that has completely disappeared.As Cassandra would be within the law if there had been an intermediary planet,we have good prima facie reason for believing that it existed.Cassandra takes,in round numbers,a thousand years to complete its orbit,and from it the sun,though brighter,appears no larger than the earth's evening or morning star.Cassandra has also three large moons;but these,when full,shine with a pale-grey light,like the old moon in the new moon's arms,in that terrestrial phenomenon when the earth,by reflecting the crescent's light,and that of the sun,makes the dark part visible.The temperature at Cassandra's surface is but little above the cold of space,and no water exists in the liquid state,it being as much a solid as aluminum or glass.There are rivers and lakes,but these consist of liquefied hydrogen and other gases,the heavier liquid collected in deep Places,and the lighter,with less than half the specific gravity of ether,floating upon it without mixing,as oil on water.When the heavier penetrates to a sufficient depth,the interior being still warm,it is converted into gas and driven back to the surface,only to be recondensed on reaching the upper air.Thus it may happen that two rains composed of separate liquids may fall together.There being but little of any other atmosphere,much of it consists of what you might call the vapour of hydrogen,and many of the well-known gases and liquids on earth exist only as liquids and solids;so that,were there mortal inhabitants on Cassandra,they might build their houses of blocks of oxygen or chlorine,as you do of limestone or marble,and use ice that never melts,in place of glass,for transparence.They would also use mercury for bullets in their rifles,just as inhabitants of the intra-Vulcan planets at the other extreme might,if their bodies consisted of asbestos,or were in any other way non-combustibly constituted,bathe in tin,lead,or even zinc,which ordinarily exist in the liquid state,as water and mercury do on the earth.
"Though Cassandra's atmosphere,such as it is,is mostly clear,for the evaporation from the rivers and icy mediterraneans is slight,the brightness of even the highest noon is less than an earthly twilight,and the stars never cease to shine.The dark base of the rocky cliffs is washed by the frigid tide,but there is scarcely a sound,for the pebbles cannot be moved by the weightless waves,and an occasional murmur is all that is heard.
Great rocks of ice reflect the light of the grey moons,and never a leaf falls or a bird sings.With the exception of the mournful ripples,the planet is silent as the grave.The animal and plant kingdoms do not exist;only the mineral and spiritual worlds.Isay spiritual,because there are souls upon it;but it is the home of the condemned in hell.Here dwell the transgressors who died unrepentant,and those who were not saved by faith.This is the one instance in which I do not enjoy my developed sight,for I sometimes glance in their direction,and the vision that meets me,as my eyes focus,distresses my soul.Their senses are like an imperfect mirror,magnifying all that is bad in one another,and distorting anything still partially good when that exists.
All those things that might at least distract them are hollow,their misery being the inevitable result of the condition of mind to which they became accustomed on earth and which brought them to Cassandra.But let us turn to something brighter.
