The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-04-23
"AvoYAeE TO THE MOON"

A Voyage to the Moon. By Monsieur
! Cyrano de Bergerac Edited by Curtis
Hidden Page. Doubleday & Mcclure
Co., New York. For sale by Putnam,
! Davis & Co.
This curious little work, which was
probably not published till 1856, the
year after Cyrano's DEATH gains ad-
ditiunal interest from having been the
/ literary precursor and inspirer of sew
eraE of Moliere's best scenes and of
Swift's famous "Gullivers Travels" 1t
is fanciful to the verge of the fantastic
| full of delicate whims and odd little
concets, but shows the liveliest, most
/ fruitful Imagination, and is surprising
s, ly quaint and charming. 1T is the 18th
century translation that is here pre-
! scented practically unchanged, with the
original spelling, capital letters sprink-
| led literally over the whole and sem
| fences of appalling length sometimes.
Mr.. Page supplies a luminous introduce
| ton upon Cyrano (not emitting his
nose, which is proved to be authentic)
and his relation to the literature of his
laday.
The full title is "Comical History of
the States and Empires of the World of
the Moon" 1t opens with party of
friends returning by the light of the
moon from a country house near Paris,
and is told in the first person. Cyrano
hazards the belief that the moon is
world like ours, remark that is re-
| ceived with general laughter. Piqued
by their scepticism, he determined to
make a voyage to the moon and find
out. He describes to us the various
ways in which he attempted to set out
for heaven. First he planted himself in
the middle of a great many glasses full
of dew, tied fast about him. with the
idea that when the sun drew up the
dew, it would draw him up, too! In this
he was partly right, for he mounted
and then fell in perpendicular line in
to Canada, whence he made his Sc
cond attempt with flying machine.
Although the machine broke under him
the saltpetre with which it was load
ed sent him up like a rocket to land
in the tree of life in the garden of
Eden, which Cyrano heretically locates
in the moon. There he met Enoch and
Elijah, who called him a wretch and a
blasphemer, and he plucked an apple
from the tree of life and ate it. The
people there walked with their arms
and legs and were enormously tall and
their conversation was like music. The
common people, however, used gesti-
culation in place of speech. When they
shot game the birds fell out of the sky
ready roasted. In the moon parents
obey their children, plants have souls,
cremation is the rule, except for male
factors, the hour is told by the teeth,
faith cure is a favorite form of treat
ment, and the steam of meat and vege-
tables is smelled in place of eating the
real substances with the mouth.
From the foregoing sketch it will bel
observed how fanciful and grotesque
the story is. At the same time the au-
thor's intellectual grasp and agility
must have been considerable, for he
has anticipated more or less distinctly
the parachute, the Darwinian theory OF
the origin of man, the microbe theory
and other modern ideas.
A portrait of Cyrano from 18th CEN
fury engraving of the original portrait
forms the frontispiece and other prints
from 18th century engravings Of Cyra-
no in his study, The little Spaniard' S"
trip to the moon, and the authors fly
ing machine enrich this quaint, timely,
and charmingly bound little book.