August 17. Oh! What a night! what a night! And yet it seems to me
that I ought to rejoice. I read until one o'clock in the morning!
Herestauss, Doctor of Philosophy and Theogony, wrote the history
and the manifestation of all those invisible beings which hover
around man, or of whom he dreams. He describes their origin,
their domains, their power; but none of them resembles the one
which haunts me. One might say that man, ever since he has
thought, has had a foreboding and a fear of a new being, stronger
than himself, his successor in this world, and that, feeling him
near, and not being able to foretell the nature of the unseen
one, he has, in his terror, created the whole race of hidden
beings, vague phantoms born of fear.

Having, therefore, read until one o'clock in the morning, I went
and sat down at the open window, in order to cool my forehead and
my thoughts in the calm night air. It was very pleasant and warm!
How I should have enjoyed such a night formerly!

There was no moon, but the stars darted out their rays in the
dark heavens. Who inhabits those worlds? What forms, what living
beings, what animals are there yonder? Do those who are thinkers
in those distant worlds know more than we do? What can they do
more than we? What do they see which we do not? Will not one of
them, some day or other, traversing space, appear on our earth to
conquer it, just as formerly the Norsemen crossed the sea in
order to subjugate nations feebler than themselves?

We are so weak, so powerless, so ignorant, so small--we who live
on this particle of mud which revolves in liquid air.