Adventures in the Moon, and Other Worlds

by Earl John Russell Russell

At this moment I was startled by a quarto volume which flew close to my head; it had just arrived from the earth, and coming in at the window flew two or three times round the room like a bird, as if looking for a place to light upon; it then perched on a shelf of quartos, and pressed itself into a vacant space. On examining these quartos I found them to be books of travels; the one which had just flown in had arrived quite new, and full of fresh intelligence.

From this multitude of travels the Italian took occasion to admire the adventurous spirit of Englishmen, who wander about the world to increase our knowledge of it, and make a book. "These large and numerous works," said he, "must contain abundant information on the laws, customs, and natures of men."

"There are travellers," answered the other, "from whom such knowledge is to be derived; but these works being found in the moon, we may conjecture that the authors of them have not been conversant with any such abstruse studies. Many of our recent travellers go out to explore countries in which there are no laws, customs, or men to be found; they undergo great hardships, and at their return the knowledge they impart to us is, that in one place they were hot, in another cold, and in a third hungry."

When I had listened for some time to this conversation, I took a cursory survey of the several divisions in which the library is arranged, and found it to contain a great variety of works in every kind of literature. There is a collection of divinity sufficient to perplex the reason of all the inhabitants of Europe. The poets occupy a very large space; the names of some I had never heard before. The political writers, too, stretch over a great territory; there is a whole library of those small undertakings called pamphlets, which redress all abuses, and extricate the country out of every distress.

A large extent of shelves is covered with the lives of men written by themselves: this is a kind of literature much increased in modern times. It was formerly the custom of celebrated men to let posterity decide whether their actions were worthy of remembrance; but it is now the undoubted right of every one to determine this matter for himself. Our ancestors erroneously believed that praise was a good which every man must owe to the kindness of others, and could not confer upon himself: we have detected this mistake amongst many others committed by our forefathers, and it is now well known that men labour under no such natural disability as was supposed, but that any one can extol himself with much greater ease, confidence, and zeal, than any other person. Through this discovery we abound with lives written without the least envy or detraction. Johnson says, "Who does not wish that the author of the 'Iliad' had gratified succeeding ages with a little knowledge of himself?" Accordingly, the moderns resolve to avoid this culpable silence of Homer, by freely imparting to the world all their undertakings, hopes, and fears,—all that they have done, and all that they have failed to do. Every man now imitates Julius Cæsar, and relates his own exploits. Very little renown is enough to justify a life, and indeed many have been written without any such instigation at all; for if a man has only tried to be famous, the story of his disappointment cannot fail to be instructive.

It is also a great discovery of modern times, that a man may publish his own adventures during his life. Formerly, it was thought decorous to die before the divulging of any private particulars; but, by the new invention, a man is able to combine the glory from memoirs with the advantage of being alive. It is now justly thought that a person famous by writing, or any other stratagem, would betray a culpable indifference to the impatience of mankind, if he delayed till his death all satisfaction of the general curiosity concerning his private habits; and there is hardly a writer of plays or romances so regardless of the world as to keep it in suspense with respect to the hours when he is used to write, the books that he reads, and the places where he dines.

I looked over the shelves of biography, and amongst all the authors of their own praises, I could hardly find one name that I had heard before. This gave me occasion to consider that memoirs are not so effectual a provision against the being forgotten as they are usually thought; and I could not help comparing the precaution of these writers with the device of Panurge in Rabelais, who, being at sea in a storm, and the ship expected to sink, could think of no rescue except making his will; for anxiety had not left him sagacity to discern that all the benefactions he might record must be drowned with him. So those writers, who are just about to be overwhelmed in oblivion, betake themselves with all the foresight of Panurge, to inform posterity of their virtues, forgetting that this intelligence must be included in the destruction.

Happening to look through the window of the library, I saw a great flight of new books approaching. They came in, and flew up and down in search of places. There were works of every size: the quartos soared backwards and forwards like swans, and the duodecimos fluttered about in the manner of sparrows. Being endued with a sagacity to find their own places, they all settled themselves in the class of books to which they belonged; the several volumes of a work remained together, and one followed another in a line, like wild geese; volume the first taking the lead, and so in succession. I saw a history consisting of fourteen octavos, which made a splendid flight; and it was amusing to see them wind round the room, still preserving their order, and then light one by one upon a shelf.

My curiosity was excited by a thin book, which, having just flown in, hovered about unable to find a resting place, and seemed to be in great distress. It had first approached the district of religious writings, and, finding room, was just preparing to light when the surly volumes closed themselves together with one accord, and refused to admit the new comer amongst them. It attempted several different openings on these shelves, but still found the same want of hospitality, and wherever it appeared the divines shut up their ranks. It then flew round the room in great trouble, and I observed that as it passed the political pamphlets they opened of their own accord and offered it an asylum, but it turned away in disdain, and again made trial of the clergy; these inexorable octavos still refused, and it fluttered about appearing to be almost exhausted. I endeavoured to catch it, but it was too active to be entrapped. I then took aim at it with another book, and was so dexterous as to bring it down stunned and crippled by the blow. I found it to be a bishop's "Charge," which, instead of enforcing the topics that belong to that sort of exhortation, was almost entirely a political treatise. The religious writings, therefore, had not acknowledged it as divinity, but the pamphlets had supposed it to be one of themselves. I thought that this "Charge" was justly excluded from the religious shelves, and that it had no right to look with contempt upon the political writings, the language of which it had thought proper to assume. I therefore pushed it in amongst the pamphlets, though it flapped violently and made great efforts to escape.