Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/354

 ance, and comprising, perhaps, the most important section of all commerce." My understood ambassadorial character was then alluded to, and all due respect from Marsians claimed for it.

But, again, on the other hand, as the article went on to say, that great earth is a world of one set of circumstances, and Mars of quite another, each being good in its own way, and each having to work out for itself its own particular problem and destiny. Mars did not presume to impose his ideas of things upon worlds outside, and he had therefore all the better right to hold that outside worlds should not intermeddle with him. Then followed some allusions, in the sarcastic vein, to the "so-called higher life," whose principles and prospects were being thrust, nolens volens upon Marsians. That higher life, like a certain other promised outside paradise, said the article, might not unlikely suit Marsians in the life hereafter, or possibly even in this life, if they could all transfer themselves to some differently circumstanced world. But let Marsians be content to go along in their own independent way, repelling and even resenting impertinent and unasked-for outside interference, from whatever quarter. Marsians had no bad world of their own, and their duty was to maintain those ancient institutions under which the planet had grown so powerful and prosperous. They had no need, on the whole, to envy any worlds outside of their own, even although such worlds very possibly felt, or at least affected to feel, superiorities.

Then alluding, in a tone of rising and culminating indignation, to a modern upsetting, traitorous habit, even amongst themselves, of judging their ancient