The worshipful gentleman spoke, his voice trembling with pride. “The present Alpha is divine,” he told me.
I saluted.
“And,” he continued, “the painting that so interests you represents the Centaurians just emerging from the savage state.”
“Ah, bravo!” We bowed deeply to each other and, admiringly. I watched him as he strolled leisurely away.
For some time I lingered, studying the untamed beauty of Alpha the First, then as the echo of voices reached me, and fearing to encounter those who had failed to notice my absence, I hurried ahead through luxurious apartments furnished in the silken modernness of my world and rested secure in a dimly-lit room crowded with primitive earthenware, grotesque pottery and cooking utensils. Progression had neatly divided the apartment. Near where I stood were shelves of ancient bric-a-brac and clay crockery of unique design and molding. There were tall, shining pedestals and enormous fat vases, and behind a hideous idol with white eyes, I hid till sure those I wished to avoid had passed on.
I wandered aimlessly, marveling at the fabulous antiquity, and finally anchored in a vast department of massive machinery. Here progression had made rapid strides; you could follow it from the crude, primitive, to perfected mechanism. I came across a curiously devised instrument, raw, immature, yet very similar to Saxe.’s lost Propellier. His invention, however, was the idea perfected, and to excite comparison and prove the superiority of his own instrument he intended constructing a new machine and present it to the museum.
I examined strange traveling conveyances, uncouth, chariot-shaped, and laughed at the repetition of custom—chariots were in use at the present time. There were huge ocean liners, and bulky, high-masted sailing vessels, and ominous, sullen battleships. The railroad was ludicrously represented in complete trains of heavy, lumbersome coaches, drawn by gigantic engines, as different from the locomotives of our world as the two halves of the globe. The first aerial machine, though a complete failure, had its niche in this colossal exposition. Tragic was its history, a score or more lives sacrificed to the inventor’s ambition. Navigable balloons came later, marking progress, success, in various forms. Most were square at the base with toy wind-mills for propellers, and if they sailed the air, all right; but not even Centauri could tempt me to enter one. Devilish implements of war and monstrous instruments of torture occupied a vast space, catalogued according to history with civilization glaringly noticeable in the learning of refined fiendishness. It was fascinating to follow up the perpetual advancement of inhumanity. From primitive ingenuity of the antediluvian age one stepped through the periods of enlightenment, reaching the zenith of hostile progression through an awful device, creating instantaneous blindness. This exhausted the age of war, but the exquisite cruelty of these people continued to advance. Instruments of frightful torture were extensively arrayed, foul infernal machines to whose ingenious devilishness nothing, nothing in the universe could compare—the Centaurians have not always been saints (?).
Constant civilization simplifies the miraculous, but savagery exists as long as life’s fluid stains red.
I lost no time in getting away from the room of horrors with its loathsome exhibit of man’s satanic genius, and hastened down a narrow, serpentine passage, plunging unexpectedly through a swinging brass net door. A flood of light greeted me and I blinked and gaped in confusion. I had stumbled into the midst of a large assemblage of gigantic men and women whose stone countenances welcomed me with every variety of expression. There were joyful, beaming smiles, and fierce glances of forbiddance, but all diffidence vanished before the sweet witchery of invitation. I had reached the hall of wonderful sculpture and at once sought the three famous loves of Centauri.
Perfection in art had been attained during the era of passion; plainly genius is a savage taint. The deadening of all emotion is productive of the marvelous in science, but abnormity is the result of too advanced civilization. In this motley collection acquired and natural inspiration is easily discernible and progression traceable in gradual sections. The Centaurians had reached the inartistic height and realized it. They treasured antiquity above all the miraculous inventions of modern times.