燦爛夜空

So many fine things as he told me, gave me the curiosity to question him about his Birth and Death; if in the Country of the Sun, the individual was procreated by the ways of Generation, and if it died by the dissolution of its Constitution , or the discomposure of its Organs? “Your senses,” replied he, “bear but too little proportion to the Explication of these Mysteries: Ye Gentlemen imagine, that whatsoever you cannot comprehend is spiritual, or that it is not at all; but that Consequence 71 is absurd, and it is an argument, that there are a Million of things, perhaps, in the Universe, that would require a Million of different Organs in you to understand them. For instance, I by my Senses know the cause of the Sympathy that is betwixt the Load-stone and the Pole, of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea, and what becomes of the Animal after Death; you cannot reach these high Conceptions but by Faith, because they are Secrets above the power of your Intellects; no more than a Blind-man can judge of the beauties of a Land-skip, the Colours of a Picture, or the streaks of a Rainbow; or at best he will fancy them to be somewhat palpable, to be like Eating, a Sound, or a pleasant Smell: Even so, should I attempt to explain to you what I perceive by the Senses which you want, you would represent it to your self as somewhat that may be Heard, Seen, Felt, Smelt or Tasted, and yet it is no such thing.”
He was gone on so far in his Discourse, when my Juggler perceived, that the Company began to be weary of my Gibberish, that they understood not, and which they took to be an inarticulated Grunting: He therefore fell to pulling my Rope afresh to make me leap and skip, till the Spectators having had their Belly-fulls of Laughing, affirmed that I had almost as much Wit as the Beasts of their Country, and so broke up.
Of the Languages of the People in the Moon ; of the Manner of Feeding there, and Paying the Scot; and of how the Author was taken to Court.
Thus, all the comfort I had during the misery of my hard Usage, were the visits of this officious 72 Spirit; for you may judge what conversation me, since besides that they only took me for an Animal, in the highest class of the Category of Bruits, I neither understood their Language, nor they mine. For you must know, that there are but two Idioms in use in that Country, one for the Grandees, and another for the People in general.
That of the great ones is no more but various inarticulate Tones, much like to our Musick when the Words are not added to the Air: 73 and in reality it is an Invention both very useful and pleasant; for when they are weary of talking, or disdain to prostitute their Throats to that Office, they take either a Lute or some other Instrument, whereby they communicate their Thoughts as well as by their Tongue: So that sometimes Fifteen or Twenty in a Company will handle a point of Divinity, or discuss the difficulties of a Law-suit, in the most harmonious Consort that ever tickled the Ear.

The second, which is used by the Vulgar, is performed by a shivering of the Members, but not, perhaps, as you may imagine; for some parts of the Body signifie an entire Discourse; for example, the agitation of a Finger, a Hand, an Ear, a Lip, an Arm, an Eye, a Cheek , every one severally will make up an Oration, or a Period with all the parts of it: Others serve only instead of Words, as the knitting of the Brows, the several quiverings of the Muscles, the turning of the Hands, the stamping of the Feet, the contorsion of the Arm; so that when they speak, as their Custom is, stark naked, their Members being used to gesticulate their Conceptions, move so quick that one would not think it to be a Man that spoke, but a Body that trembled.