And what if there be no air around the moon? The Lunars breathe pure ether, then—and so do we, “of a shiny night!”
Inasmuch as our affection is for, and our subject is the moon itself, we shall have little to say of the inhabitants thereof. For all that we know they are a dirty set, as the philosophers would fain make us believe. Perhaps there may be none to speak of. In the ancient legends of Mother Goose, it is recorded, that the Man in the Moon (as if there were but one) made a descent upon the earth, about meridian one day. The hour would seem to indicate that his residence in the planet is for somewhat the same purpose as that which induces the presence of a light-house keeper at his lonely post. He comes down at noon, undoubtedly, as being the most convenient season, for at night he could not well be spared. Having spent the morning in preparing for his nightly illumination, and entertaining a laudable desire for earthly geographical information, he seizes this opportunity to visit this world, and forthwith inquires his most direct route to Norwich. We wonder which route was recommended to him—whether by the way of Hartford and the Willimantic Railroad, by steamboat direct, or by Jersey Island Railroad and Greenport Ferry.
Why it should have been a coincidence so remarkable as to be worthy of record on the pages of history, that a gentleman in Australia, on this day, scalded his mouth with a “hasty plate” of brose of moderate temperature, we have never been able to divine.
But the sun has thrown more light upon the moon, and the theory of its being inhabited, than any other luminary. The sun, we say—but not the real sun, nor the True Sun, but the sun which “shines for all”—The New York Sun—the Sun of Moses Y. Beach—and Son. In certain numbers of that useful newspaper, of the volume of 1834, if we recollect aright, we shall find that Mr. Locke has given us the key to many things which before were mysteries. The good people of that time, when they read the narrative of the extraordinary discoveries of Sir John Herschel and his learned companions, at the Cape of Good Hope, became firmly convinced that the Man in the Moon was no fabulous personage; but that he really existed, and a good many more of the same sort with him, to say nothing of women, children, and quadrupeds—all intelligent creatures, knowing more than the Man in the Moon was generally and proverbially supposed to know; students, probably—for each creature had a shade over his or her eyes, but one of Nature’s providing, showing that the moon is not, probably, a good market for green silk and pasteboard.
And speaking of green silk, in this connection, reminds us of green cheese. But, psha! that idea is exploded. If we proceed in this strain, noticing and commenting upon every wild vagary of those romancing fellows, the astronomers, somebody may accuse us of wishing to make light of the moon, the which is the furthest thing on earth from our intention.
Didst ever read Locke’s Moon Hoax? We were a school-boy at Albany when it was first published, and we recollect well how gravely the old master of a certain school in North Pearl street—the boys used to call him the Centre of Gravity—announced his full belief in its authenticity, and advised the class in Algebra to look over the calculations. And how an old lady of our acquaintance wrote an article on the wonders of modern science, and the probabilities of a railroad to the moon in the course of a generation or two, which the editor of the Evening Journal wouldn’t publish; whereat the old lady denounced him to us savagely. We have never been able ever since to think of Mr. Weed, except as a man radically opposed to internal improvements—externally projected. What a demand there was for telescopes and Extra Suns! What crowds of people there were for two or three nights on Capitol Hill, gaping at the full moon, as if they expected to discover one of Mr. Locke’s hooded sheep grazing on the rays which shot from her broad, round disc.
There is one theory of these wise ones that seems to concern us mundane fellows a little more nearly. It is said that the moon, owing to her less size and small distance from the earth, has but little comparative attractive power, and that a body projected but a short distance from the surface of the moon would stand as fair a chance for a sublunary fall, as for a return to its original sphere. And now we recollect, in this place, that although we have a well authenticated account of the Man in the Moon’s coming down to the earth, there is no record of his return. Perhaps the Lunars have a motto—Facilis descensis Terrae, etc. The adventurer aforesaid may be carrying on the chandlery business in Norwich this day, or perhaps traveling in company with the Wandering Jew, seeking for “the jumping-off place.” Who knows but that all the moon-faced people we encounter are descendants of this great descender. Or, dear brother lunatic, it may be that we may claim a celestial ancestry in his person, and that the idiosyncrasy which distinguishes us from common mortals, is the result of an instinctive longing for the bright former home of our common progenitor. But to return; despite the facility with which, as this theory seems to indicate, our foreign relations may come to us on a lasting visit, this notion of the looseness and levity of matters and things on the moon’s surface is unpleasantly suggestive. We remember ugly stories of big, odd-looking stones, found newly half-buried in the ground, the origin of which folks formerly ascribed to meteors, and such like flash gentry, and latterly to our favorite. While lying on one’s back in a cool arbor, apostrophizing the Queen of Night, one does not like to feel the least uneasiness, lest she, by way of reply, pitch half a ton of granite through the frail, vine-covered roof. We always had a notion that the blessed St. Stephen died a very horrid death. The fable of the Boys and the Frogs has always excited our warmest sympathies for the unoffending and persecuted reptiles. We have pitied even the merited fate of the Giant of Gath. Besides, a general belief in this theory would not be apt to cause an increase in the number of green-houses and sky-lights; and a cousin of ours, a very worthy young woman, has just married a glazier.
A true lunatic, as we have hinted, is not content with thinking of the moon as a mere planet, convenient for the light it sheds, and the facilities it affords to sailors in finding their longitude. He wishes to personify, to deify; to speak to her, to think of her as a sentient being, celestial, divine, to be sure, but with a human heart; rejoicing, sorrowing with the mortals she looks down upon. Will any blockhead prate of the unreasonableness of such unphilosophical wishes? Has not the moon a face, eyes, nose, mouth, clothed with unearthly beauty, like and yet unlike that of the Sphinx? How many generations of men like us have gazed upon those calm, changeless features! That cold, chaste, pitying face returned the wondering stare of Adam and Eve their first night in Eden. It shone upon the lifeless corpse of Abel. It looked sorrowfully down upon the last night of the antediluvian world, and in its next revolution saw itself everywhere reflected in the waters that covered the whole earth. Its rays have gilded the pinnacles which for ages have rested beneath the stagnant, bitter waters of the Dead Sea, and have trembled amidst the leaves and flowers of the hanging gardens of Nineveh and Babylon. The Chaldean shepherds used to gaze upon it as we do now, and held therewith an intercourse, intimate, mysterious, above our comprehension. It paled with fear and dread when Troy burned. The white temples of Athens, in the time of Pericles, glowed in the light of that very moon, upon which we of this later day may look at will. The streets of Rome were made brilliant by the same moon which to-night shines upon gas-lighted Broadway. It has seen the Temple of Solomon and its magnificent successor in all their glory. It saw England a savage waste, Germany and Gaul ere Cæsar’s legions were born. It knew and visited the wide extent of the New World before the foundations of Genoa were laid, but kept the secret safe. The moon saw London a humble village on the banks of the unstoried Thames; Paris, while yet the island in the Seine, contained all the metropolis of France; New York, no upstart in this connection, in the time of the puissant Peter Stuyvesant. Her face has not changed since the dear friend, over whose grave the grass has grown these twenty years, looked last upon it.
The sun’s face is not familiar. Few are the times we look steadily at it, and then it is disguised; the memory of it is associated with smoked glass, eclipses and strange phenomena. The stars, as individuals, are too small, too much alike, for us to feel acquainted with. But the moon—why, her face, each feature of it, is as familiar as the face of our dearest friend and next door neighbor; and as it looks to us to-night, so have all mankind seen it since the foundations of the earth were laid. It is the same broad, pure, serene, changeless face; always smiling the same thoughtful, pitying smile. The world has changed beneath, but as she looked to Adam, so looks the moon to us, this glorious August night; and were the innumerable dead to rise to-night, that face would be the sole familiar object to greet the eyes of the astonished host.
And while we speak—this moment—how strange, how diverse the scenes she looks down upon and illuminates. As she slowly ascends our heavens, the early rising Moslem in Hindostan sees her pale face in the western sky, as in his morning devotions he bows his head toward Mecca and the tomb of his prophet. The western sides of the eternal pyramids glow in her brilliant light, as they have been wont to do for thousands of years. She is riding above the heads of wild Arabs, traversing in the cooler night, the sparkling, heated sands of the Great Desert. The fountain springs of the Niger and the Nile she spies out, and in them sees her image. The jungles of unknown Ethiopia are illuminated by her presence. The waves of the Mediterranean sparkle in her light, as they dash against the shores of Holy Palestine, of classic Greece, of storied Italy, and of hoary, ancient Egypt. She looks steadily down into the crater of Vesuvius. The ice-clad summit of Mont Blanc stands ghost-like, and catches first the silvery radiance of her beams. All Europe lies in deep sleep and varied beauty beneath her. All over the broad Atlantic the white sails of a thousand ships are glittering in her rays. On she comes, over Columbus’ track, and the New World, from where Sir John Franklin lies imbedded in northern ice to the stormy Horn, hails her coming—not as but a few hundred years since. Now the steeples of New York, Havana, and Rio catch the silvery light. On, on she rides. In an hour the Father of Waters will be glowing beneath her vertical rays. A few hours more she will shine upon the snow-tops of the Rocky Mountains, and the western shores of our vast territory, and the eyes of our distant, gold-seeking friends, and our bold seamen on the wide Pacific, will be brightened by her presence. And then she will bid us good-night, and speed her way above the countless islands, coral-reefs, and tranquil waters of that far spreading sea, to spy out the secrets of jealous Japan and curious China.