my own
which have often, when I was dreaming, convinced me that I was asleep
and thus enabled me to awake. I gathered some pebbles and began to count
them and lay them in heaps, and count them over again. There were no
discrepancies between my counts; I was awake. Then I took out my pencil
and memorandum-book to see whether I could solve an equation. But my
hand was seized with trembling, and wrote without my assistance or
guidance these words: "I, Copernicus, will comfort your friends. Be
calm, be happy, you shall return and reap a peculiar glory. You, first
of the inhabitants of Earth, have visited another planet while in the
flesh. You are on an island in the tropical regions of Mars. I will take
you home when you desire it,--only not now."

It would be in vain for me to attempt to recall and to describe the
whirling tumult of thoughts and emotions which this message created. I
sat down upon the grass, and for a time was incapable of deliberate
thought or action. At length I arose and paced up and down the turf,
staring around upon the changeless blue of the seaward horizon, the
heaving swell of the ocean, the restless surf fretting against the
shore, and the motionless hills that rose behind each other inland, and
lured the eye to a distant group of mountains. The coloring of sea and
land was wonderfully fine; both seemed formed of similar translucent
purple; and despite the excited state of my feelings and the stupendous
nature of the words which I had just seen written by my own pencil, I
was impressed with a sense of grandeur and of beauty which presently
filled me with faith and hope. I assured myself that the spirit to whom
permission had been given thus to transport me from my home was as kind
as he was powerful. He had set me down in a beautiful country, he had
promised to return me home when I desired it,--"only not now";--by which
I concluded that he wished me to think calmly over the question before
asking to return. And why, I added, should I be in haste? Copernicus, if
it be he, promises to comfort my parents,--the island looks fertile,--if
I find no inhabitants, I can be a new Robinson Crusoe,--and when I have
explored the island thoroughly, I will ask this spirit to carry me back
to New York, where I shall publish my observations, and add a new
chapter to our knowledge of the solar system.

I walked toward the mountains, among strange shrubs, and under strange
trees. Some were in blossom, others lade