Note 4 — Chapter I · THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE EGGS AND THE HATCHING
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
If Micromégas4 took it into his head to leave Sirius once more and visit our planet, would he find anything to admire among us? Voltaire shows him to us using one of the diamonds of his necklace as a magnifying-glass in order to obtain some sort of view of the three-master which has run aground on his thumb-nail. He enters into conversation with the crew. A nail-paring, curved like a horn, encompasses the ship and serves as a speaking-trumpet; a tooth-pick, which touches the vessel with its tapering end and the lips of the giant, some thousand fathoms above, with the other, serves as a telephone. The outcome of the famous dialogue is that, if we would form a sound judgment of things and see them under fresh aspects, there is nothing like changing one’s planet.