"
"For my part, however," continued Barbican, not heeding these
interruptions, "I must confess that, notwithstanding the magnificent
splendor of the spectacle when viewed for the first time by the Selenite
who inhabits the dark side of the Moon, I should prefer to be a resident
on the illuminated side. The former, when his long, blazing, roasting,
dazzling day is over, has a night 354 hours long, whose darkness, like
that, just now surrounding us, is ever unrelieved save by the cold
cheerless rays of the stars. But the latter has hardly seen his fiery
sun sinking on one horizon when he beholds rising on the opposite one an
orb, milder, paler, and colder indeed than the Sun, but fully as large
as thirteen of our full Moons, and therefore shedding thirteen times as
much light. This would be our Earth. It would pass through all its
phases too, exactly like our Satellite. The Selenites would have their
New Earth, Full Earth, and Last Quarter. At midnight, grandly
illuminated, it would shine with the greatest glory. But that is almost
as much as can be said for it. Its futile heat would but poorly
compensate for its superior radiance. All the calorie accumulated in the
lunar soil during the 354 hours day would have by this time radiated
completely into space.
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