"The clamor of our approach brought to the scene the dwellers in the
houses and the wanderers in the streets. And amongst the great density
of forms and faces I saw the phosphorescent figures of many forming
spirits swept on in this friendly anarchy of delight and anticipation.
"My son, as I send these words out into the ether-filled realms of space
across the millions of miles that intervene between that speck of light
on which even now I know you lament my departure, and this new home of
mine, which to you also is but a speck of light, I feel in a desperation
of doubt that you will never hear them.
"How thrilled and awe-struck I became as I gazed around me, and looking
over the surging mob beheld their multitudinous lineaments, the faces of
the races of our earth, its many nations, the faces of men or women who
had lived in Venus, in Mercury, in the fixed stars, perhaps, as we call
those globes from whose lambent surface light reached the earth after
the expiration of a century of years. What a beautiful exhilaration of
feeling it imparted, these flushed and shining faces, the liquid eyes of
the south now charged with the fires of transporting expectation, the
steady gaze of blue-eyed northerners firm and rapt and steadfast; the
power of huge, colossal frames of muscle, the sinuous activity of spare
and slender forms all attired in that consummate garb of blue and white,
their caps of metal reflecting the light in cerulean lustres.
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