A Columbus of Space (Unabridged). Garrett P. Serviss. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Garrett P. Serviss
Издательство: Bookwire
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Жанр произведения: Языкознание
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9788027247653
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       Garrett P. Serviss

      A Columbus of Space

      (Unabridged)

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2018 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-272-4765-3

      Table of Contents

       Chapter I. A Marvelous Invention

       Chapter II. A Trip of Terror

       Chapter III. The Planetary Limited

       Chapter IV. The Caverns of Venus

       Chapter V. Off for the Sun Lands

       Chapter VI. Lost in the Crystal Mountains

       Chapter VII. The Children of the Sun

       Chapter VIII. Language Without Speech

       Chapter IX. An Amazing Metropolis

       Chapter X. Imprisonment and a Wonderful Escape

       Chapter XI. Before the Throne of Venus

       Chapter XII. More Marvels

       Chapter XIII. We Fall into Trouble Again

       Chapter XIV. The Sun God

       Chapter XV. At the Mercy of Fearful Enemies

       Chapter XVI. Dreadful Creatures of the Gloom

       Chapter XVII. Earth Magic on Venus

       Chapter XVIII. Wild Eden

       Chapter XIX. The Secret of the Car

       Chapter XX. The Corybantia of the Sun

       Chapter XXI. The Earth

      To the Readers of Jules Verne's Romances This Story is Dedicated

      Not because the author flatters himself that he can walk in the Footsteps of that Immortal Dreamer, but because, like Jules Verne, he believes that the World of Imagination is as legitimate a Domain of the Human Mind as the World of Fact.

      Chapter I.

       A Marvelous Invention

       Table of Contents

      I am a hero worshiper; an insatiable devourer of biographies; and I say that no man in all the splendid list ever equaled Edmund Stonewall. You smile because you have never heard his name, for, until now, his biography has not been written. And this is not truly a biography; it is only the story of the crowning event in Stonewall's career.

      Really it humbles one's pride of race to see how ignorant the world is of its true heroes. Many a man who cuts a great figure in history is, after all, a poor specimen of humanity, slavishly following old ruts, destitute of any real originality, and remarkable only for some exaggeration of the commonplace. But in the case of Edmund Stonewall the world cannot be blamed for its ignorance, because, as I have already said, his story remains to be written, and hitherto it has been guarded as a profound secret.

      I do not wish to exaggerate; yet I cannot avoid seeming to do so in simply telling the facts. If Stonewall's proceedings had become Matter of common knowledge the world would have been—I must speak plainly—revolutionized. He held in his hands the means of realizing the wildest dreams of power, wealth, and human mastery over the forces of nature, that any enthusiast ever treasured in his prophetic soul. It was a part of his originality that he never entertained the thought of employing his advantage in any such way. His character was entirely free from the ordinary forms of avidity. He cared nothing for wealth in itself, and as little for fame. All his energies were concentrated upon the attainment of ends which nobody but himself would have regarded as of any practical importance. Thus it happened that, having made an invention which would have put every human industry upon a new footing, and multiplied beyond the limits of calculation the activities and achievements of mankind, this extraordinary person turned his back upon the colossal fortune which he had but to stretch forth his hand and grasp, refused to seize the unlimited power which his genius had laid at his feet, and used his unparalleled discovery for a purpose so eccentric, so wildly unpractical, so utterly beyond the pale of waking life, that to any ordinary man he must have seemed a lunatic lost in an endless dream of bedlam. And to this day I cannot, without a nervous thrill, think how the desire of all the ages, the ideal that has been the loadstar for thousands of philosophers, savants, inventors, prophets, and dreamers, was actually realized upon the earth; and yet of all its fifteen hundred million inhabitants but a single one knew it, possessed it, controlled it—and he would not reveal it, but hoarded and used his knowledge for the accomplishment of the craziest design that ever took shape in a human brain.

      Now, to be more specific. Of Stonewall's antecedents I know very little. I only know that, in a moderate way, he was wealthy, and that he had no immediate family ties. He was somewhere near thirty years of age, and held the diploma of one of our oldest universities. But he was not, in a general way, sociable, and I never knew him to attend any of the reunions of his former classmates, or to show the slightest interest in any of the events or functions of society, although its doors were open to him through some distant relatives who were widely connected in New York, and who at times tried to draw him into their circle. He would certainly have adorned it, but it had no attraction for him. Nevertheless he was a member of the Olympus Club, where he frequently spent his evenings. But he made very few acquaintances even there, and I believe that except myself, Jack Ashton, Henry Darton, and Will Church, he had no intimates. And we knew him only at the club. There, when he was alone with us, he sometimes partly opened up his mind, and we were charmed by his variety of knowledge and the singularity of his conversation. I shall not disguise the fact that we thought him extremely eccentric, although the idea of anything in the nature of insanity never entered our heads. We knew that he was engaged in recondite