Aleriel

by Wladislaw Somerville Lach-Szyrma

A VOYAGE TO OTHER WORLDS.

ALERIEL;

OR,

A VOYAGE TO OTHER WORLDS.

 

A Tale.

 

BY

Rev. W. S. LACH-SZYRMA, M.A.

VICAR OF NEWLYN ST. PETER,
author of
"a voice from another world; " "a short history of penzance," etc.;
"heroes of the day;" " pleas for the faith," etc. etc.

 

WITH MAPS OF MARS AND VENUS.

 

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SECOND EDITION.

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LONDON:
WYMAN & SONS, 74-76, GREAT QUEEN STREET,
LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, W.C.
1886.

All Rights Reserved.

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PRESS NOTICES.

"The book is curious, and not a little mystical." — Bookseller.

"We hope the tale will have the success which its merit fully deserves." — Literary Churchman.

"This very fantastic tale has been written with a fixed purpose." — Notes and Queries.

"The story is very skilfully and ingeniously told, and as a speculation in science is consistent and not improbable." — Yorkshire Post.

"Portions of the book remind us of Swedenborg, Fontenelle, and Lord Lytton .... The story throughout, however, is curious, and very well told." — Liverpool Mercury.

"No ordinary reader will rise from its perusal without enjoyment, and without having gained in a most attractive form a better knowledge of the wandering stars." — Western Daily Mercury.

"The author never offends, and the moral lesson inculcated is a good one." — Lloyd's.

"The author has allowed his fancy to have free play, while his speculations are based on the known facts of Astronomy, and he has imparted a moral and religious tone into his amusing and somewhat fantastic tales." — Church Times.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

I AM, on the whole, pleased with the reception of this little book by the literary world. It has received less adverse criticism than I anticipated. The serious side of the book, the underlying theory of the Cosmos, has, however, not generally been noticed. Although seemingly light and imaginative, this work is the result of many years' study of Nature's laws, and my meditations upon Creation have led me to a theory which I have only ventured to lay before the public in this popular and imaginative form.

This theory is that life is well-nigh universal, and that, as we see the elements (in the spectroscope) which are found upon the earth, prevailing in distant stars in divers combinations, so the forms of life which are found on earth, prevail in other worlds, but under various kinds of development. At present, man knows of two worlds of life—the Land and the Aquatic, to which we may add the worlds of past ages in Palaeontology. But, both on land and sea, we find the same general conception (so to speak) of flora and fauna. The sea has its plants (in the algae), its moluscs, its insects (in the Crustacea), its vertebrata (in the fishes and cetacea). So in past ages life, both by sea and land, seems to have been complete: plants, insects, vertebrate animals existing even in secondary formations.

Let us now by the symbols A, B, C, D represent the four great types of life.

A. Vertebrata	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	again in the Vertebrate Animals			$\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,}$	AA. Mamillia
B. Articulata		...	...	...		AB. Birds.
C. Mollusca		...	...	...	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	AC. Reptiles and Amphibia.
D. Radiata and Zoophytes				...		A.D. Fishes.
In Plants	$\scriptstyle {\left\{{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right.}$	A. Dicotyledons. B. Monocotyledons.			C. Ferns & Cryptogamous Plants D. Algæ

Now, may not these types be found on other worlds, distributed and developed according to the fitness of their habitats? I have supposed the type:—

AB. in Mercury, which is similar to Venus in many ways. (With this I have not dealt in this work.)

AB. in Venus. Mountainous; dense atmosphere; moderate gravitation; varied climates, suited to birds or flying beings, able to traverse space easily; plants, perhaps monocotyledons.

AA. in Earth's Land. (Perhaps with element of B for man as a biped, has some slight corporeal connection with both the quadrumana and birds.)

AD. in Earth's Ocean. Fish type and Algæ.

AC. in Earth in ancient state in secondary formations. More marshy, therefore reptilian and amphibious types prevailed.

AA. in Mars. Moderate atmosphere; few mountains; surface, mostly land. Mammals, like carnivora.

AD. in Jupiter. Great gravitation; surface, mostly fluid. Plants, algæ. Animals of fish type.

AC. in Saturn. Antique world, like Earth in secondary epochs. Uranus and Neptune as yet little known in their physical formation.

This is the conception of Nature I have thought of: Unity in Diversity, but all showing the same Divine Law-giver; life developed under the same laws, and united in its higher forms to rational intelligences, like Man.

PREFACE.

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WHEN children are shown the wonders of the heavens, for the first time, in the telescope, their natural exclamation usually is, "Are there any people up there in those planets?"

It is an old question, and the affirmative answer is rather supported than overturned by the discoveries of modern science. When we are told that everything almost that we can see on Earth — yea, every particle of dust — has once lived, we are inclined to think that the same law which seems to be the dominant law of Earth, i,e., that nearly all things on Earth's surface either have lived or are now living, may perchance be the general law of the universe.

Our Earth is singular in nothing. In size, the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are much larger; Mercury, Mars, the planetoids, and the satellites much smaller; Venus, our twin-sister world, almost the same. In form, the Earth is nearly a sphere, and so are all, or nearly all, its fellow-worlds; some are more flattened at the poles, and some less. The Earth is enveloped in an atmosphere,—so it seems are Venus, Mercury, Mars, and probably the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. The earth has continents and oceans,—so have Mars and (probably) Venus. The Earth has snow in winter,—so it seems has Mars. The Earth possesses a satellite,—so do Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune possess their satellites. In fact, the Earth is peculiar in nothing which we might expect to trace in other worlds. Why should we suppose it to be the sole abode of life? This subject has been much discussed. Not to speak of the older astronomers, in our own time Proctor, Flammarion, Brewster, and Powell have discussed it. I must own that the objections have ever seemed to me to be most frivolous. Can this grain on the sands of infinity—this little planet of an unimportant system—be the sole abode of vitality?

But, if there be life, what life? This is a question which has occupied many of the noblest of human minds. Man cannot know absolutely, in this his Earth-life, what the life of other worlds may be.

 

On Nature's Alps I stand
And see a thousand firmaments beneath,—
A thousand systems as a thousand grains;
So much a stranger and so late arrived,
How shall man's curious spirit not inquire
What are the natives of this world sublime,
Of this so distant interrestrial sphere,
Where mortal untranslated never stray'd!^[1]

 

Probably the best conception of this matter is that suggested by Messrs. Nasmyth and Carpenter, in their valuable work on the Moon, where they say, "Is it not conceivable that the protogerms of life pervade the whole universe, and have been located on every planetary body therein?" In the Moon, circumstances seem to be unfavourable to life; but it is a mere begging the question to assume that this is the law of every orb in heaven save this earth of ours.

In the following tale or speculation (as you choose to take it), although apparently I have given no rein to the imagination, yet I have endeavoured to avoid as much as possible any conflict with established scientific discoveries; and, indeed, have based my speculations on the known facts of astronomy, only allowing the fancy to have free play where science is, and must be, unable, in its present state, to answer the questions here considered. If there are any statements which are found to be irreconcilable with any of the recent discoveries of inductive science, I shall be much obliged to any scientific reader to draw my attention to them, and they shall be corrected in a future edition.

It will be noticed by the reader that, to give it more human interest, and also to ventilate some practical subjects, there are two Utopias in this book—the one in which there is a speculation as to a perfect society of perfect happiness, such as may be regarded as a meditation on the possible joys of a future state; the other a more practical Utopia, implying the tendencies of human progress, and suggesting improvements for human society as it now exists. The other worlds beside these two (Venus and Mars) have no special earth-lesson to teach; they are little more than bold deductions from observations or probabilities suggested by them.

I have by no means assumed, as some extreme partisans of the habitability of other worlds are wont to do, that all the planets are inhabited. I rather suppose that Earth at present is merely an example of one phase of planetary development, i.e., one in which life can exist; that some worlds are like it (though none in precisely the same condition); that others are as yet in a primitive state, just as the Earth was in the period of, say, the secondary formations; that others, however, are more highly developed than this world; and, finally, that in others life is extinct. This ideal is much the same as that of Oersted, who says: "On some planets the creatures may be possibly on a far larger scale, on others far smaller, than on our own; on some, perhaps, they are formed of less solid matter, or may, indeed, approach the transparency of ether; or, on others again, be formed of much denser matter. The rational creatures on some of the planets may be capable of receiving far quicker, more acute, and more distinct impressions than on the Earth. We may imagine that there are reasonable beings with weaker faculties than our own" (as I have in these pages supposed to be the case); "but, if we properly appreciate our present distance from the aspirations of our reason, we feel compelled to acknowledge that an endless number of degrees of development may exist above the point we have reached."

I have further supposed that no two worlds are alike in their developments of vitality, just as no two are alike as seen in the telescope, nor in their apparent physical characteristics. Yet, as in all the solar system there is an underlying unity of design, so I have supposed that "unity in diversity" is the law of vitality as well as of matter, and thus that the life in each of our sister-worlds is like some form or other of life to be found on Earth, just as the fact has been revealed to us by the spectroscope that the same metallic and gaseous elements as we find about us on Earth exist even in distant stars. Thus I have supposed that the life in other worlds is like what we find on earth, but that in each world there is a distinct development. In the apportionment of each such development to divers worlds, I have supposed that the physical constitution of each world, as far as we know it, affects the form of life upon it.

As to the theological question of God's dealings with the inhabitants of other worlds, I have hardly presumed to touch the subject. These things we can only know when we see no more as "in a glass darkly, but face to face"; and it seems to me that those who have ventured to speculate on it, as Kircher or Swedenborg, have exceeded propriety.

The pessimism of my hero also requires some apology. I appeal, however, to my reader's intelligence, whether any one coming from a happier world, and seeing the anomalies and misery of Earth, would not be shocked and pained? As it is, the pessimism of Aleriel is not stronger than that of the Wise King in Ecclesiastes, nor of many ancient and modern philosophers. It is not nearly so bitter as that of Byron.

With regard to the resemblances to other works of this character, e.g., Swedenborg, Fontenelle, Lord Lytton, &c., I may say frankly that I have not copied, consciously at least, from any one. If resemblances occur, they may be attributed to the fact that two minds have come by diverse paths to the same conclusion, and that conclusion has therefore something to be said for it—which is all one can say for an obscure speculation of this nature.

The fabric of the work is a continuation of my "Voice from Another World," a short résumé of part of which I have given in the Trehyndra letter, to make the argument plain. I must add that the dramatis personæ are, of course, purely imaginary.

In conclusion, I must ask my readers to consider the work as a whole, and not condemn it entirely if they find some one passage opposed to their preconceived notions. I can hardly expect any one to agree with me in all points. I trust, however, that this seemingly fantastic tale may encourage the young to study in more serious works the facts of astronomical science, and perhaps cheer their elders with the thought that, though much is sad on Earth, yet there may be brighter worlds than this, and a happier existence than we can have here. Earth is not the Universe, and our life here is not eternity.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

I.

The Hunchback of Mont St. Gabriel. ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1

II.

Besieged in Paris ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

8

III.

The Escape ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

14

IV.

London ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

22

V.

Oxford ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

29

VI.

A Love Chapter ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

34

VII.

A Strange Letter ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

42

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Part II— THE MYSTERIOUS DOCUMENT.

I.

Aleriel's Journey Home—The Moon ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

64

II.

Copernicus ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

71

III.

Welcome Home ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

73

IV.

Earth as Others See it. ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

82

V.

A Strange Proposal ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

90

Part III.— MARS.

I.

The Voyage through Space ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

97

II.

The Ice Island ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

100

III.

Tycho Island ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

106

IV.

A Martian Instructor ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

114

V.

The Ocean Capital ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

126

VI.

The Voyage of Circumnavigation ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

139

VII.

The Feast ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

149

Part IV.—THE GIANT WORLD.

I.

Deimos, and the Voyage from Mars through Space ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

155

II.

First Impressions ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

162

III.

The Ocean World ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

169

IV.

The Land of Fire ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

175

Part V.— SATURN.

I.

Titan ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

179

II.

Saturn ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

186

III.

Return ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

193

Part VI.—CONCLUSION.

I.

Consideration page ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

197

II.

Jungfrau ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

200

III.

A Night with Unearthly Friends ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

206

IV.

Explanations ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

210

V.

Adieu ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

213

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NOTES.

The Moon — Venus— Mars — Jupiter ....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

215

1. Young.