“‘Their minds must differ a great deal,’ said the Grand Lunar, ‘or they would all want to do the same things.’
“In order to bring myself into a closer harmony with his preconceptions I said that his surmise was right. ‘It was all hidden in the brain,’ I said; ‘but the difference was there. Perhaps if one could see the minds and souls of men they would be as varied and unequal as the Selenites. There were great men and small men, men who could reach out far and wide, and men who could go swiftly; noisy, trumpet-minded men, and men who could remember without thinking.... [The record is indistinct for three words.]
“He interrupted me to recall me to my previous statement. ‘But you said all men rule?’ he pressed.
“‘To a certain extent,’ I said, and made, I fear, a denser fog with my explanation.
“He reached out to a salient fact. ‘Do you mean,’ he asked, ‘that there is no Grand Earthly?’
“I thought of several people, but assured him finally there was none. I explained that such autocrats and emperors as we had tried upon earth had usually ended in drink, or vice, or violence, and that the large and influential section of the people of the earth to which I belonged, the Anglo-Saxons, did not mean to try that sort of thing again. At which the Grand Lunar was even more amazed.
“‘But how do you keep even such wisdom as you have?’ he asked; and I explained to him the way we helped our limited “He then caused me to describe how we went about this earth of ours, and I described to him our railways and ships. For a time he could not understand that we had had the use of steam only one hundred years, but when he did he was clearly amazed. (I may mention as a singular thing that the Selenites use years to count by, just as we do on earth, though I can make nothing of their numeral system. That, however, does not matter, because Phi-oo understands ours.) From that I went on to tell him that mankind had dwelt in cities only for nine or ten thousand years, and that we were still not united in one brotherhood, but under many different forms of government. This astonished the Grand Lunar very much, when it was made clear to him. At first he thought we referred merely to administrative areas. “‘Our States and Empires are still the rawest sketches of what order will some day be,’ I said, and so I came to tell him.... [At this point a length of record that probably represents thirty or forty words is totally illegible.] “The Grand Lunar was greatly impressed by the folly of men in clinging to the inconvenience of diverse tongues. ‘They want to communicate, and yet not to communicate,’ he said, and then for a long time he questioned me closely concerning war.