ing and cheerful toilers, they prefer war to work, and
they would rather kill each other than help each other. But to be just
one must admit that their shortness of life is the principal cause of
their ignorance and cruelty. Their life is too short for them to learn
how to live. The race of the dwarfs who dwell under the earth is happier
and better. If we are not immortal we shall at least last as long as
the earth which bears us in her bosom, and which permeates us with her
intimate and fruitful warmth, while for the races born on her rugged
surface she has only the turbulent winds which sometimes scorch and
sometimes freeze, and whose breath is at once the bearer of death and
of life. And yet men owe to their overwhelming miseries and wickedness
a virtue which makes the souls of some amongst them more beautiful than
the souls of dwarfs. And this virtue, O King Loc, which for the mind is
what the soft radiance of pearls is for the eyes, is pity. It is taught
by suffering, and the dwarfs know it but little, because being wiser
than men they escape much anguish. Yet sometimes the dwarfs leave their
deep grottoes and seek the pitiless surface of the earth to mingle with
men so as to love them, to suffer with them and through them, and thus
to feel this pity which refreshes the soul like a heavenly dew. This
is the truth concerning men, King Loc. But did you not ask me as to the
exact fate of some one amongst them?"

King Loc having repeated his question, Nur looked into one of the many
telescopes which filled the room. For the dwarfs have no books, those
which are found amongst them have come from men, and are only used as
playthings. They do not learn as we do by consulting marks on paper,
but they look through telescopes and see the subject itself of their
inquiry. The only difficulty is to choose the right telescope and get
the right focus.

There are telescopes of crystal, of topaz and of opal; but those whose
lens is a great polished diamond are more powerful, and permit them to
see the most distant objects.

The dwarfs also have lenses of a translucent substance unknown to men.
These enable the sight to pass through rocks and walls as if they were
glass. Others, more remarkable still, reconstruct as accurately as a
mirror all that has vanished with the flight of time. For the dwarfs, in
the depths of their caverns, have the power to recall from the infinite
surface of the ether the light of immemorial days and the