“‘Not even liquefy?’
“I was about to say ‘No,’ but then it occurred to me that one part at least of our atmosphere, the water vapour of it, does sometimes liquefy and form dew, and sometimes freeze and form frost—a process perfectly analogous to the freezing of all the external atmosphere of the moon during its longer night. I made myself clear on this point, and from that the Grand Lunar went on to speak with me of sleep. For the need of sleep that comes so regularly every twenty-four hours to all things is part also of our earthly inheritance. On the moon they rest only at rare intervals, and after exceptional exertions. Then I tried to describe to him the soft splendours of a summer night, and from that I passed to a description of those animals that prowl by night and sleep by day. I told him of lions and tigers, and here it seemed as though we had come to a deadlock. For, save in their waters, there are no creatures in the moon not absolutely domestic and subject to his will, and so it has been for immemorial years. They have monstrous water creatures, but no evil beasts, and the idea of anything strong and large existing ‘outside’ in the night is very difficult for them....
[The record is here too broken to transcribe for the space of perhaps twenty words or more.]
“He talked with his attendants, as I suppose, upon the strange superficiality and unreasonableness of (man), who lives on the mere surface of a world, a creature of waves and winds, and all the chances of space, who cannot even unite to overcome the beasts that prey upon his kind, and yet who dares to invade another planet. During this aside I sat thinking, and then at his desire I told him of the different sorts of men. He searched me with questions. ‘And for all sorts of work you have the same sort of men. But who thinks? Who governs?’
“I gave him an outline of the democratic method.
“When I had done he ordered cooling sprays upon his brow, and then requested me to repeat my explanation, conceiving something had miscarried.
“‘Do they not do different things, then?’ said Phi-oo.
“Some I admitted were thinkers and some officials; some hunted, some were mechanics, some artists, some toilers. ‘But all rule,’ I said.
“‘And have they not different shapes to fit them to their different duties?’
“‘None that you can see,’ I said, ‘except, perhaps, for clothes. Their minds perhaps differ a little,’ I reflected.