The nerve currents are so rapid, the mind
seems so persuasive, that coming events are registered by a prophetic
feeling I can scarcely describe. For that reason, Chapman, I grow
happier every minute, for now I see approaching that great joy, my
reunion with Martha, the one great divine event I hunger and hope for.
"'Well,' said Chapman, as a cloud covered the scudding moons, 'I do hope
you may see her, and somehow I think, too, you will. But, Dodd,' the
moons emerged, and the lower one was in transit across the face of the
upper, 'I must call your attention to this strange peculiarity of our
bodies, that we undergo extremes of temperature with almost no
noticeable sense of the great heat or cold. This region we are
traversing is about the latitude of Christ Church, as I told you, and it
is the period of harvests, and the heat is moderate, but in the height
of summer the heat seems scarcely more felt than now, and in the
clothing I am now wearing, I have sailed through the ice packs of the
North, and slept thinly covered in its snows, but without undue
discomfort. I tell you, matter in us, and flesh and blood in us are all
differently conditioned.'
"'Why not ask these questions of the wise men of the Patenta, the
doctors and chemists?' I replied. 'I can think of an analogy that might
make this Martian constitution intelligible. A close, dense body
conducts heat or cold; a loose, open texture or cellular mass does not.
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