"Zee," said my host mildly, "you belong to the College of Sages, and
ought to be wiser than I am; but, as chief of the Light-preserving
Council, it is my duty to take nothing for granted till it is proved to
the evidence of my own senses." Then, turning to me, he asked me several
questions about the surface of the earth and the heavenly bodies; upon
which, though I answered him to the best of my knowledge, my answers
seemed not to satisfy nor convince him. He shook his head quietly, and,
changing the subject rather abruptly, asked how I had come down from
what he was pleased to call one world to the other. I answered, that
under the surface of the earth there were mines containing minerals,
or metals, essential to our wants and our progress in all arts and
industries; and I then briefly explained the manner in which, while
exploring one of those mines, I and my ill-fated friend had obtained a
glimpse of the regions into which we had descended, and how the descent
had cost him his life; appealing to the rope and grappling-hooks
that the child had brought to the house in which I had been at first
received, as a witness of the truthfulness of my story.

My host then proceeded to question me as to the habits and modes of
life among the races on the upper earth, more especially among those
considered to be the most advanced in that civilisation which he was
pleased to define "the art of diffusing throughout a community the
tranquil happiness which belongs to a virtuous and well-ordered
household." Naturally desiring to represent in the most favourable
colours the world from which I came, I touched but slightly, though
indulgently, on the antiquated and decaying institutions of Europe, in
order to expatiate on the present grandeur and prospective pre-eminence
of that glorious American Republic, in which Europe enviously seeks its
model and tremblingly foresees its doom. Selecting for an example of the
social life of the United States that city in which progress advances