As I now know there is a Martian language, if this communication came
from that planet, which was my own and my father's deepest conviction,
it would be impossible to interpret the foregoing record with any
certainty, or indeed, in any way. Absolute ignorance of that language,
except the brief mention in my father's communications, received by
myself from that body--whose publication before I die is the sole
purpose of this manuscript--make it quite certain that it is in the main
a vowel language, consisting of short vocalic syllables. In such a case
it is probable that some abbreviation has been used, and the problem of
its resolution simply is placed out of the question. I may here
partially forestall the facts communicated to me by my father from Mars.
In those unparalleled messages he has told me of the desire of the
Martians to communicate with the earth, and as the Martians themselves
are largely made up of transplanted human spirits, the possibility of
doing so would have been completely expected. But the singular
evanescence of memory amongst these humans which absolutely displaces
details of strictly mnemonic acquirements, except in certain directions
of art and invention, has apparently precluded this.
We remained at the register almost the entire night taking turns in our
tireless vigil. But no more disturbances occurred. My father was deeply
moved and I scarcely less so. Accustomed as we had become to the thought
that wireless telegraphy would place us more readily in touch with the
sidereal universe than with distant points upon our earth, presuming
indeed, that, except for the intervening envelopes of atmosphere
attached to our or any neighboring planet, the path of transmission of
messages through space would be inconceivably swift, we saw nothing
really impossible in the impression that we had that night received
communications from extra-terrestrial sources.
The thought was none the less stupendous, and it seemed almost
impossible for us to allude to the subject without a peculiar sense of
reverential self-suppression, at least for a week or so. Examination and
inquiry showed us no contiguous source of the message and it seemed most
improbable that it had come to us from any distant part of the earth, as
we had become acquainted with the difficulty or impossibility of
bridging our very great distances with the resources then at human
command, and with the unavoidable exigence of the earth's convexity.
* * * * *
It was a few months after this that my father, returning from a climb in
the neighboring hills, complained of great weariness and a sort of mild
vertigo. I had become exceedingly endeared to him. I found him a most
unusual companion, and unnaturally separated as I had been from more
ordinary associations, our lives had assumed an almost fraternal
tenderness.
I was greatly troubled to see my father's illness, and begged him to
take rest; indeed, to leave the observatory for a while; to visit Christ
Church. We had made some very congenial acquaintances in Christ Church.
A family of Tontines and a gentleman and his daughter by the name of
Dodan had often visited us, and while we had become somewhat a subject
of perennial curiosity, and were more or less visited by curiosity
hunters and others, actuated by more intelligent motives, the Tontines
and the Dodans remained our only very intimate friends.
Indeed, Miss Dodan had come to me, buried in scientific speculations and
denied hitherto all female acquaintances, like a beam of light through
a sky not at all dark, but gray and pensive and sometimes almost
irksome. Miss Katharine Dodan was gentle, pretty, and unaffectedly
enthusiastic. Her interest in all equipment of our laboratories was
boundless. When I found myself alone with her at the big telescope
adjusting everything with--oh! such exquisite precision--and then
sometimes discovered my hand resting upon hers, or my head touching
those silken brown curves of hair that framed her white brow and
reddening cheeks, the throbbing pleasure was so sweet, so unexpected, so
strange, that I felt a new desire rise in my heart, and the newness of
life lifted me for a moment out of myself, and started those fires of
ambition and hope that only a lovely woman can awaken in the heart of a
man. I mention this circumstance that led to the fatal train of
occurrences that led to my father's death.
I urged my father to go to Christ Church and stay with the Dodans. Mr.
Dodan had frequently invited him, and Miss Dodan's brightness and her
cheerful art at the piano would, I know, cheer him, inured too long to
his lonely life, subject to the periodic returns of that bitter sadness,
which was now only accentuated by his self-imposed exile from the home
and scenes of his former happiness.
He at last consented, and in October, 1891, accompanied by the Dodans,
whom he had summoned from Christ Church, he went down the steep hillside
that slanted from our plateau to the lowlands, and was soon lost from
view in a turn of the road, which also robbed me of the sight of a
waving, small white handkerchief, floating in front of a half-loosened
pile of chestnut hair.
A few days later I received a visit from Miss Dodan. I was then working
at some photographs in the dark room. My assistant told me of her
arrival. I hurried to our little reception room and library, where a few
of my father's "Worthies of Science" decorated the walls, which for the
most part were covered with irregular book cases, while a long square
covered table occupied the center of the room, littered with charts,
maps, journals and daily papers.
Miss Dodan sat near the wide window looking toward Christ Church and the
quickly descending road over which only a few days ago my father had
journeyed. I caught in her face, as I entered, an anxious and disturbed
glance, and I felt almost instantly an intimation of disaster. She
turned to me as I came into the room and with a quick movement advanced.
"Mr. Dodd, your father is ill. I hardly know what is the matter with
him. He is quite strange; does not know us when we talk to him, and
wanders in a talk about 'magnetic waves' and 'his wife' and 'different
code.' Won't you come to see him? You may help him greatly."
The kind, clear eyes looked up into mine and the impulse of real
sympathy as she pressed my hand seemed unmistakable. I asked a few
questions and was convinced that my father was the victim of some sort
of shock, perhaps precipitated by the continuous excitement caused by
our unaccountable experience in the observatory.
I was but a few moments getting ready for the drive to Christ Church. I
remember the cold, crisp air, the rapid motion, and can I ever forget
it--the nearness and touch of Miss Dodan's person, perhaps only a
hurried brushing past me of her arm, the stray touch of her floating
hair, or the accidental stubbing of her foot against my own. It seemed a
short, delicious drive. I fear my heart was almost equally divided
between apprehension for my father's health and the joy of simple
nearness to the woman I loved. At last we reached Christ Church. The
Dodans lived in the suburbs in a pretty villa on a high hill, from whose
top the city lay spread before them in its modest extent with its
neighboring places and Port Lyttelon eight miles away.
I found my father better, but it required my own zeal and affection to
thoroughly restore him, and bring him back to his characteristic
interest and alertness, which made him so original and delightful a
companion. At length, by a week's nursing, during which Miss Dodan and
myself were frequently together, becoming more and more attached to each
other, my father renewed his wonted studies, and strongly desired to
return to the "plateau."
I almost regretted, harsh as the thought may seem, our return. Such
incidents are now a kind of sweet sadness to recall, for as I write
these words, I hear nearer and nearer the summons that must put me also
in the spirit world, while she, in whose heart my own trustingly lived,
has been taken away, I think wisely and prudently, to live with her
father's people in a charming, rustic village of Devonshire. But oh! so
far away! and this picture which daily I draw from beneath the pillow of
my sick couch must alone serve to replace the companionship of her face
and voice.
I can permit myself in this last record of an unrecoverable past to
describe a treasured incident just before I left the Dodan home with my
father. I was coming out of my room when I found Miss Dodan also
emerging from her own bedroom at the opposite end of an upper hall. We
met and I said: "Miss Dodan, it is a treacherous confession, but I wish
you were going back with us, or that my father would stay a little
longer here. I shall miss you."
"Yes," she answered. "Aren't you a good nurse?"
"Oh, I think you need not misunderstand me," I insisted.
"Misunderstanding is rather an English trait, you Americans say," she
retorted.
"But in this case," I continued, "I hoped any disadvantages of that sort
would be overcome by your own feelings."
She blushed and looked quite dauntlessly into my eyes: "You mean," she
inquired, "that you are sorry to leave me?"
My face was very red, I knew, and I felt a puzzling sensation in my
throat, but I did not hesitate: "Of course, I am sorry to leave you,
more sorry than I can say, but I fear more, that leaving you may mean
losing you."
This time confusion seemed struggling with a pleased mirth in her face,
and with a laugh and a quick movement toward the stairway she exclaimed:
"Well, Americans, they say, never lose what they really care to win."
I darted forward, but she was too quick for me and the chase ended in
the lower hall in a group of people--her parents, my father, visitors
and servants--and I saw her disappear with a backward glance, in which,
I could swear, I saw two pouting lips.
My father was overjoyed to return to our really very comfortable
quarters on "Martian Hill," as Mr. Dodan, in reference to my father's
infatuation over his imaginary (?) population of Mars, was accustomed to
call our professional home.
It was, I think, only a few weeks after this that my father called me to
his room. He was standing in his morning apparel, a strange garb which
he sometimes affected, made up of a black velvet gown brought together
at the waist by a stout yellow cord, a bright red skull cap, a sort of
sandal shoe, picked out with silver ornaments, his arms covered with
loose, puckered sleeves of lace, dotted with black extending up to the
close fitting sleeves of the velvet gown which only descended to his
elbow. Beneath the gown, when he was thus theatrically attired, he wore
a shirt of pale blue silk with a flat collar, over which came a black
vest meeting his black trunks and blue hose.
My father was a really striking and beautiful picture in his incongruous
habiliment. His strong and thoughtful face, over which yet clustered the
curly hair of boyhood, just touched with gray, lit up by his earnest,
sad eyes, seemed--how distinctly I recall it--almost ideally lovely that
morning, and I compared him in my thoughts with the father of Romola,
only as wearing a more youthful expression. He was seated when I came
in, and as his eyes encountered mine, I detected the traces of tears
upon his cheeks. My heart was full of love for my father, or childlike
adoration it might have been called. I hurried to him and embraced him.
The tenderness overcame his habitual self-restraint and he seemed to
fall sobbing in my arms.
"My son," he finally whispered, "my days are drawing very fast to a
close. The shock I experienced at Christ Church prepared me to believe I
would die in some attack of paralysis. A slight aphasia occurred this
morning. It, too, as suddenly disappeared. But these warnings cannot be
neglected. I and you must at once make preparations for that future
colloquy which we must endeavor to establish between ourselves, when I
have left this earth and you yet remain upon it.
"I have been thinking a good deal on this subject and my reflections
have resulted in this conclusion."
His voice had now resumed its usual melody and power, and we sat down
while he turned the pages of Prof. Bain's little work entitled "Mind and
Body." He read (I marked at the time the passage): "The memory rises
and falls with the bodily condition; being vigorous in our fresh moments
and feeble when we are fatigued or exhausted. It is related by Sir Henry
Holland that on one occasion he descended, on the same day, two mines in
the Hartz Mountains, remaining some hours in each. In the second mine he
was so exhausted with inanition and fatigue, that his memory utterly
failed him; he could not recollect a single word of German. The power
came back after taking food and wine. Old age notoriously impairs the
memory in ninety-nine men out of a hundred."
My father then continued: "It seems to me quite clear that our memory,
at any rate, however little of our other mental attributes is engaged in
matter, is quite constructed in a series of molecular arrangements of
our nervous tissues. No doubt there is memory also in that subtle fluid
that survives death, but, inasmuch as memory is so closely expressed in
physical or material units or elements, does it not seem plain that as
spirits we shall probably lose memory?
"The material structure in which it existed, which in a sense was memory
itself, is dissipated by death. Memory disappears with it. But perhaps
not wholly. Some shadow of itself remains. What will most likely be
treasured then? The strongest, deepest memories only. Those which are
so subjectively strong as to leave even in the spirit _flesh_ an
impression. In this same little book of Bain's this sentence occurs:
'Retention, Acquisition, or Memory, then, being the power of continuing
in the mind, impressions that are no longer stimulated by the original
agent, and of recalling them at after-times by purely mental forces, I
shall remark first on the cerebral seat of those renewed impressions. It
must be considered as almost beyond a doubt that the _renewed feeling
occupies the very same parts, and in the same manner as the original
feeling_, and no other parts, nor in any other manner that can be
assigned.'
"It seems to me, my son, in view of all this, that, as the fondest hope
of my life is to send back to you from wherever I may be, a message, and
as we both believe the means must be something like this wireless
telegraphy, I must imbed in my mind the whole system we have developed,
and especially make myself almost intuitively familiar with the Morse
alphabet. Beating, beating, beating upon my brain substance this
ceaselessly reiterated mechanical language, it will become so
incorporated, that even in the surviving mind I shall find its traces
and be able to use it.
"So I have concluded to put aside almost everything else and think and
live in the thought only of this coming experience. You understand me?
You sympathize in this? Yes, yes, I shall get ready for this supreme
experiment which may at last, to a long waiting world, bring some
reasonable assurance that death does not end all. As I think of it, as I
look forward to meeting your mother, the whole prospect of death grows
wonderfully interesting and sublimely welcome. And yet, my son, you, you
who have been so patient, so kind, giving up your life for my
convenience and pleasure, I dread to leave you. But I will speak to you!
Watch! wait! and at that instrument upstairs, which I know responded to
some waves of magnetism crossing the oceans of space, I shall be heard
by you in English words, opening up the mysteries of other worlds!"
He stopped in sheer exhaustion with his whole face charged with almost
frantic ecstacy. It seemed to me so natural, nurtured in the same
impossible dreams, that I saw nothing ludicrous in his hopes.
From that day on we gave ourselves up to telegraphing from our two
stations, while my father again and again consulted models of our
transmitters and receivers. This excitement lasted a long time and it
did seem psychologically certain that in any disembodied condition my
father would be likely to recall some important parts or all of this
well learned lesson.
For years my father, as I mentioned before, in his astronomical studies,
had limited himself to the study, photography and drawing of the
surfaces of our planetary neighbors. Mars particularly fascinated him,
for he had, by some illusion or accident of thought fixed his belief
firmly that Mars represented his future post mortem home.
The progress of study of the physical features of Mars had been
considerable. With these results my father and I were very familiar, had
been in correspondence with certain astronomical centers with regard to
them, and had even contributed something toward the elucidation of the
problems thus presented.
In 1884, before the Royal Society, some notes on the aspect of Mars, by
Otto Baeddicker, were read by the Earl of Rosse. They were accompanied
by thirteen drawings of the planet and showed many features represented
on the Schiaparelli charts. W.F. Denning in 1885, remarked upon "the
seeming permanency of the chief lineaments on Mars, and their
distinctiveness of outline." Schiaparelli confirmed his previous
observations upon the duplications of the canals and Mr. Knobel
published some sketches.
In 1886, M. Terby presented to the Royal Academy of Belgium notes on
drawings made by Herschell and Schroeter, indicating the so-called
Kaiser Sea. M. Perrotin at the Nice Observatory was able to redetect
Schiaparelli's canals, which elicited the remark that "the reality of
the existence of the delicate markings discovered by the keen-sighted
astronomer of Brera seems thus fully demonstrated, and it appears highly
probable that they vary in shape and distinctness with the changes of
the Martial seasons."
These observations of M. Perrotin were detailed at length in the
_Bulletin Astronomique_, and the distinguished observer called attention
to the fact that these markings varied but slightly from Schiaparelli's
chart, and indicated a state of things of considerable stability in the
equatorial region of Mars. M. Perrotin recorded changes in the Kaiser
Sea (Schiaparelli's _Syrtis Major_). This spot, usually dark, was seen
on May 21, 1886, "to be covered with a luminous cloud forming regular
and parallel bands, stretching from northwest to southeast on the
surface, in color somewhat similar to that of the continents but not
quite so bright." These cloud-like coverings were later more distributed
and on the three following days diminished greatly in intensity. They
were referred by Perrotin to clouds.
In March and April of the year 1886 a study was made of the surface of
Mars by W.F. Denning in England. Mr. Denning's drawings corroborated the
charts of Green, Schiaparelli, Knobel, Terby and Baeddicker. He found
the surface of Mars one of extreme complexity, a multitude of bright
spots in places, but with a general fixity of character which led him to
believe that the appearances were not atmospheric. He indeed attributed
to Mars an attenuated atmosphere and thought that some of the vagaries
in its surface characters were due to variations in our own atmosphere
He did not find the Schiaparelli canals as distinct in outline as given
by that ingenious observer. He noted many brilliant spots on Mars and
indicated the disturbing influences of vibrations produced by winds on
the surface of our earth in connection with changes in the earth's
atmospheric envelope.
In 1888 M. Perrotin continued his observations on the channels of Mars
and noted changes. The triangular continent (Lydia of Schiaparelli) had
disappeared, its reddish white tint indicating, or supposed to indicate,
land, was then replaced by the black or blue color of the seas of Mars.
New channels were observed, some of them in "direct continuation" with
channels previously observed, amongst these an apparent channel through
the polar ice cap. Some of these seemed double, running from near the
equator to the neighborhood of the North Pole. The place called Lydia
disappeared and reappeared. A strange puzzling statement was made that
the canals could be traced straight across seas and continents in the
line of the meridian. M. Terby confirmed many of these observations.
Later the so-called "inundation of Lydia," observed by M. Perrotin, was
doubted. Schiaparelli himself, Terby, Niesten at Brussels, and Holden at
the Lick Observatory, failed to remark this change. These observers did
not double the canals satisfactorily, but all agreed upon the striking
whiteness and brightness of the planet.
M. Fizeau (1888) argued that the Schiaparelli canals were really glacial
phenomena, being ridges, crevasses, rectilinear fissures, etc., of
continental masses of ice. Again (Bulletin de l'Academie Royale de
Belgique, June) M. Nesten averred that the changes on the surface of
Mars were periodic.
In 1889, Prof. Schiaparelli reviewed what had been observed upon the
surface of the planet in a continued article in _Himmel und Erde_, a
popular astronomical journal published by the Gesellschaft Urania and
edited by Dr. Meyer.
Some remarkable photographs taken by Mr. Wilson in 1890 were commented
on by Prof. W.H. Pickering in the "Sidereal Messenger." They showed the
seasonal variations in the polar white blotches.
In 1889 there reached us from Chatto and Windus of London a most
entertaining book by Hugh MacColl, entitled "Mr. Stranger's Sealed
Packet." It was a work of fancy, ingeniously constructed upon scientific
principles. It described a hypothetical machine, a flying machine, which
was made up of a substance more than half of whose mass had been
converted into repelling particles. Such a fabric would leave the earth,
pass the limits of its attraction with an accelerating velocity and move
through space. In such a way Mr. Stranger reached Mars. He found it
inhabited by a people--the Marticoli--happy in a state of socialism, and
with abundance of food manufactured from the elements, oxygen, hydrogen,
carbon and nitrogen, with electric lights, phonetic speech, but without
gunpowder or telescopes.
Its inhabitants had been derived from the earth by a most delightful
scientific fabrication. A sun and its satellites in its course around
some other center draws the earth and Mars so together that on some
parts of the earth's surface the attraction of Mars would overcome that
of the earth and gently suck up to itself inhabitants from the earth,
who would not suffer death from loss of air, as the atmosphere of both
bodies would be mingled.
These observations and this last scientific myth have some interest in
view of the actual knowledge now vouchsafed to the world through my
father's messages. I have very briefly reviewed them.
My father's premonitions were fully realized. He grew sensibly weaker as
the months of 1891 passed. His mind became eager with the cherished
expectation which grew day by day into a sort of a mild possession. It
seemed to me that there was a moderate aberration involved in his deeply
seated convictions, and when sometimes I saw him walking past the
windows on the plateau with his head thrown back, his arms outstretched
as if he were inviting the stars to take him and his murmuring voice,
repeating some snatches of song, I felt awed and frightened.
My father was stricken with paralysis on September 21, 1892, became
speechless the following day, but for a day thereafter wrote on a pad
his last directions. Some of these were quite personal, and need not be
detailed here. It was indeed pathetic to see his strenuous and repeated
efforts to assure me that he remembered all the parts of the telegraphic
apparatus, and his smile of saddened self-depreciation when he
hesitated over some detail. At last he sank into a torpor with the usual
stertorous breathing, flushed face and gradually chilled extremities.
His last words were scrawled almost illegibly by his failing
hand--"Remember, watch, wait, I will send the messages."
Miss Dodan came to the plateau and was helpful; to me especially. She
kept up my breaking spirits, and her womanly tenderness, her brave
grace, and the joy my loving heart felt in seeing her, enabled me to go
through the trial of death and separation.
All was finished. My father was buried in Christ Church cemetery by his
own request, although thus separated by a hemisphere from his wife.
* * * * *
A year had passed. I had received nothing. Mr. and Miss Dodan came to
the observatory. They both were acquainted with the singular
prepossessions which controlled both myself and my father, and I think
Mr. Dodan was himself, though he admitted nothing, most curious and
interested in the whole matter. Miss Dodan frankly said she was. But I
know, to Miss Dodan's fresh, healthy, human life there was something
weirdly repellent in this thought of communication with the dead. She
thought of it with a nervous dread and excitement. It just kept me in
her thoughts a little shrouded in mystery and superiority and closed a
little the avenues of absolute confidence and peaceful self-surrender.
I had forgotten nothing, although at first an overwhelming sense of the
uselessness of the attempt, the almost grotesque absurdity of expecting
to hear from beyond the limits of the earth's atmosphere any word
transmitted through a mechanical invention, upon the earth's crust, made
me feel somewhat ashamed of my preparations, yet I arranged every
portion of the receiver and exercised my best skill to give it the most
delicate adjustment.
Whenever I had occasion to rest I either sent an assistant to the post,
or kept on my pillow, adjusted to my ear, a telephone attachment to the
Morse register, so that its signals might instantly receive attention.
At length as time wore on I arranged a bell signal that might summon us
to the register.
On the occasion of this visit by the Dodans I was in the loft at the
receiver which was in a room to one side of that we called "the
equatorial," where the telescope was suspended. I was as usual waiting
for a message that never came, and my failing hopes, made more and more
transitory by the brightness of the southern spring and all the instant
present industry of the fields below me on the low-lands, seemed to
dissolve into a mocking phantom of derisive dreams.
I stood up hackneyed and forlorn. Had I not done everything I could? Had
I not kept my promise? I heard the voices below me; one, that musical
tone, that made the color come and go upon my cheeks, and as I turned
hastily to descend to them while the breathing earth seemed to send
upward its powerful sensitizing odors that turn energy into languorous
desire, and touch the senses with indolence; at that moment the Morse
register spoke!
Could my ears have deceived me? No! It was running, running, running,
intelligible, strong, definite; it seemed to me of almost piercing
loudness, although just audible. I bent over, seized my pad and wrote.
The Abyss of Death was bridged! From behind the veil of that inexorable
silence which lies beyond the grave came a voice--and what a voice! The
clicking of a telegraphic register in signals, that the whole world knew
and used. I was quiet, preternaturally so, I think, as I took down the
message. I became almost aged in the intense rigidity of my absorption.
I was told the Dodans came up and saw me, heard the telltale clicks of
the register, and unnoticed left me. Still I wrote on, unheeding the
time. My assistants, pale with wonder, stood around me. The measured
tappings were the ghostly voices of another world. This message began at
10 a.m., Sept. 25, 1893. It ended at 10 p.m. on the same day. It came
quite evenly, though slowly, and was unmistakably intended to be
inerrantly recorded, as indeed it was.