dwellers; but that body cannot make a law it can only put laws into operation. When same new law is wanted men and women selected by the people form a temporary Parliament and consider the question; these are rare occasions. The Central itself when it wants a new member elects one from those selected in each district to manage local affairs.'
'Power must be invested somewhere?'
'It must,' answered Martha, 'and on Mars it is held by those who cannot be interested in abusing it. We have no party; whosoever joins the Central is elected for life and has no advantage but that which you hold, viz., the Freedom of the Planet. We are not ruled by a mob, nor by a despot; we rule ourselves and make the wise one hundred administrators of the laws we have from time to time made.'
'I have had very little experience of life except that which I have lived here as a Martial youth. I know practically nothing of earth life. I am therefore to be excused if I ask you what you think of the moral tone of the earthborns who come to this planet; are they equal to the people of Mars?'
'Generally they are,' answered Martha, 'if they were not fit to associate with the Martials they would not be born here; without flattering ourselves we may say that we have risen to another world. Your earth life has been pretty good else you would not have been here. It is possible that some of us are prepared for Martial life by the influence of friends on Mars; there may be much more connection than we dream of between the two planets. Most of what you regard as new inventions are Martial suggestions received from the souls of friends who have come to dwell in a smaller but happier, because better world. Some of our earth friends may be tempted more than the Martials are but I have never heard of anything being done by an earthborn that might not have been done by a Martial.'
'You remember the earth life and I do not; can you tell me if there are any people there who claim to be from Venus?'
'I can,' answered my friend. 'There are none. Venus may be a grand world some day; it will be able to support life when the sun has left us in the cold, but it is one hundred thousand years short of the human stage at present. It is passing through a carboniferous epoch and its highest life is that of reptiles. It is fourteen times as hot as it is here; and it receives light in like proportion, but the light will never reach the surface of the planet through the thick, heavy atmosphere.'
At this point my friend left me having some other matter to attend to, and a young man who had heard some of our conversation, told me that she had come to study music for a year at the great school; he was afraid that she was not very happy as she did not appear to form social ties of any kind. He was interested in our conversation because he, like me, knew nothing about his earth life. He said that he was studying earth, history and found great pleasure in it because it corresponded in many ways with that of our
