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"
I knew some one who was rather interested in astronomy. It occurred to me
that it would be rather odd if--my friend--chanced to be looking through
come telescope."
"It would need the most powerful telescope on earth even now to see us as
the minutest speck."
For a time I stared in silence at the moon.
"It's a world," I said; "one feels that infinitely more than one ever did
on earth. People perhaps--"
"People!" he exclaimed. "No! Banish all that! Think yourself a sort of
ultra-arctic voyager exploring the desolate places of space. Look at it!"
He waved his hand at the shining whiteness below. "It's dead--dead! Vast
extinct volcanoes, lava wildernesses, tumbled wastes of snow, or frozen
carbonic acid, or frozen air, and everywhere landslip seams and cracks and
gulfs. Nothing happens. Men have watched this planet systematically with
telescopes for over two hundred years. How much change do you think they
have seen?"
"None."
"
They have traced two indisputable landslips, a doubtful crack, and one
slight periodic change of colour, and that's all."
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