some seconds to perform a journey of more than
twenty million of our Danish [*] miles; borne by electricity, the soul
wants even some minutes less to accomplish the same flight. To it the
space between the heavenly bodies is not greater than the distance
between the homes of our friends in town is for us, even if they live a
short way from each other; such an electric shock in the heart, however,
costs us the use of the body here below; unless, like the watchman of
East Street, we happen to have on the Shoes of Fortune.

* A Danish mile is nearly 4 3/4 English.

In a few seconds the watchman had done the fifty-two thousand of our
miles up to the moon, which, as everyone knows, was formed out of
matter much lighter than our earth; and is, so we should say, as soft
as newly-fallen snow. He found himself on one of the many circumjacent
mountain-ridges with which we are acquainted by means of Dr. Madler's
"Map of the Moon." Within, down it sunk perpendicularly into a caldron,
about a Danish mile in depth; while below lay a town, whose appearance
we can, in some measure, realize to ourselves by beating the white of
an egg in a glass of water. The matter of which it was built was just as
soft, and formed similar towers, and domes, and pillars, transparent and
rocking in the thin air; while above his head our earth was rolling like
a large fiery ball.

He perceived immediately a quantity of beings who were certainly what
we call "men"; yet they looked different to us. A far more correct
imagination than that of the pseudo-Herschel* had created them; and
if they had been placed in rank and file, and copied by some skilful
painter's hand, one would, without doubt, have exclaimed involuntarily,
"What a beautiful arabesque!"

*This relates to a book published some years ago in Germany, and said
to be by Herschel, which contained a description of the moon and its
inhabitants, written with such a semblance of truth that many were
deceived by the imposture.

Probably a translation of the celebrated Moon hoax, written by Richard
A. Locke, and originally published in New York.

They had a language too; but surely nobody can expect that the soul of
the watchman should understand it. Be that as it may, it did comprehend
it; for in our souls there germinate far greater powers than we poor
mortals, despite all our cleverness, have any notion of. Does she
not show us--she the queen in the land of enchantment--her astounding