only be isolated in thought from each other by a distance greater
than that which any vocal sound can traverse; but their organs of
voice and hearing are far more complex and perfect than ours, and
their atmosphere infinitely more conductive of phonal vibrations.

It seems that everything which can be apprehended by the eye or hand
is capable of absolute sonorous translation: light, color, texture,
shape in its three dimensions, weight, and density. The phonal
expression and comprehension of all these are acquired by the
Martian baby almost as soon as it knows how to swim or dive, or move
upright and erect on dry land or beneath it; and the mechanical
translation of such expression by means of wind and wire and
sounding texture and curved surface of extraordinary elaboration is
the principal business of the Martian life--an art by which all the
combined past experience and future aspirations of the race receive
the fullest utterance. Here again personal magnetism plays an
enormous part.

And it is by means of this long and patiently evolved and highly
trained faculty that the race is still developing towards perfection
with constant strain and effort--although the planet is far advanced
in its decadence and within measurable distance of its unfitness for
life of any kind.

All is so evenly and harmoniously balanced, whether above ground or
beneath, that existence is full of joy in spite of the tremendous
strain of life, in spite also of a dreariness of outlook, on barren
nature, which is not to be matched by the most inhospitable regions
of the earth; and death is looked upon as the crowning joy of all,
although life is prolonged by all the means in their power.

For when the life of the body ceases and the body itself is burned
and its ashes scattered to the winds and waves, the infinitesimal,
imponderable, and indestructible something _we_ call the _soul_ is
known to lose itself in a sunbeam and make for the sun, with all its
memories about it, that it may then receive further development,
fitting it for other systems altogether beyond conception; and the
longer it has lived in Mars the better for its eternal life in the
future.

But it often, on its journey sunwards, gets entangled in other
beams, and finds its way to some intermediate planet--Mercury,
Venus, or the Earth; and putting on flesh and blood and bone once
more, and losing for a space all its knowledge of its own past, it
has to undergo another mort