Horace. You brought me? (Dejected.) There is no escape.
Messenger. None whatever. (Horace astounded to find his thought read by Messenger.) Look around. Do you know where you are?
Horace. (The front of the house is a transparency and now lights up from within and shows a ballroom. Ladies and gentlemen strolling about between dances.) I declare, if it isn’t Mrs. Clarence’s! In full swing.
Messenger. I have brought you here where you refused to come to-night to give you your first lesson in Otherdom.
Horace. What’s that? Otherdom, you say? (Interior again dark.)
Messenger. You do not understand? It is characteristic of your race that while all that is vile and ignoble is well expressed by your word “Selfishness,” your language does not supply its opposite. In Mars we have a word which means the abandonment of self and the striving for others. It is the great essential virtue, Otherdom.
Horace. Thank you. I will bear it in mind.
Messenger. On your life show it in your acts.
Horace. Oh, I will. May I go home now; it’s very chilly.
Messenger. Poor thing of Temperature! Your scientists still leave you slaves of the weather. What braggarts are you to dream as yet of civilization! When you can weave water into clothing, spin fire into ribbons, and wear them in the altitudes, you shall speak of some advancement. Your mills of Fashion sigh and hum, but not one of you can outdress a butterfly. Yet the New Times would rush upon you had Otherdom a place with you. That is the substance of which Knowledge is but the shadow playing about it—growing as it grows. You seek to puff out the shadow—it will be shadow merely while Time’s torch burns. Look yonder. Who comes? Speak to her.